Shorter Antibiotic Course Effective for Infective Endocarditis

The POET-II trial, involving 508 patients, demonstrated that a response-tailored strategy can safely reduce antibiotic treatment duration for left-sided infective endocarditis by two weeks.

Patients in the tailored-therapy group received antibiotics for a median of 26 days compared to 41 days for the standard group, with no compromise in safety outcomes.

Presented at ESC Congress 2026, the study found that 8.2% of tailored-therapy patients experienced primary safety events, meeting noninferiority criteria compared to 10.7% in the standard treatment group.