Contributor: Jared Scott, MD Educational Pearls: Variability of organisms in infecting the myocardial valves Duke Criteria for Infective Endocarditis includes three categories that can be used to definitively diagnose endocarditis Pathologic Criteria pathological evidence of infection Major Clinical Criteria positive blood cultures positive echocardiogram findings (TEE is more sensitive than a TTE) Minor Clinical Criteria (must include all of the below criteria) Fever Underlying heart condition or IV drug use Vascular phenomena (includes Janeway’s lesions) Immunologic phenomena (includes Osler’s nodes, Roth spots) Positive blood cultures or serologic evidence of infection with bacteria known to cause endocarditis Some studies show up to a 33% one-year mortality of people diagnosed with endocarditis This criteria was developed by David Durack, MD and he was affiliated with Duke University, shout out to Dr. Pete Bakes! References https://www.mdcalc.com/duke-criteria-infective-endocarditis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NLtNg-pqv0 Holland TL, Baddour LM, Bayer AS, Hoen B, Miro JM, Fowler VG Jr. Infective endocarditis. Nat Rev Dis Primers. 2016;2:16059. Published 2016 Sep 1. doi:10.1038/nrdp.2016.59 Summarized by John Spartz, MS4 | Edited by Erik Verzemnieks, MD   The Emergency Medical Minute is excited to announce that we are now offering AMA PRA Category 1 credits™ via online course modules. To access these and for more information, visit our website at https://emergencymedicalminute.org/cme-courses/ and create an account.  Donate to EMM today!