Atlas of Endocarditis : a clinical and pathological approach

Endocarditis was considered in the past a disease of ominous prognosis. Nowadays, despite the improvements in early diagnosis, prognosis and treatment, it remains in many cases a challenging clinical problem, freqiently complicated by involvement of different organs. This Atlas, intended for clinicians and students, faces two different conditions: infective endocarditis and non-infective endocarditis, devoting special attention to macroscopic and microscopic findings at autopsy. Although these two conditions differ in etiology, pathogenesis, and pathology, infective endocarditis may be considered as a continuum from non-infective endocarditis due to the overlapping conditions that characterize these diseases.