Studies

Merged Database

The initial project of the ICE investigation has involved the merger of existing databases that were kept by ICE investigators. The purpose of the database merger project was to begin evaluation of regional differences in endocarditis and to provide a large sample of IE patients that would permit sub-group analyses. These studies have been planned to generate hypotheses that may be tested in the ICE Prospective Cohort Study.

This database contains cases of endocarditis from 7 centers in 5 countries. There are 2212 cases of definite IE in this database from the following centers:

• Barcelona, Spain
• Besan�on/Nancy, France
• Durham, USA
• G�teborg/Stockholm, Sweden
• London, UK
• Marseille, France
• Philadelphia, USA

Multiple studies are underway that utilize this database to evaluate many aspects of endocarditis.

Published Manuscripts relating to the Merged Database can be found in the Publications section in the Members website.

Prospective Cohort Study

The ICE prospective cohort study has been designed to answer the following initial questions:

• To determine regional differences in IE
• To characterize aspects of IE that are infrequent in small, single center studies
• To determine predictors of outcomes in a large cohort of IE patients
• To analyze natural experiments regarding practice variation and associated patient outcomes

Currently, the ICE studies include over 100 investigators at 50 centers in 20 countries

ICE+ Project Specific

The ICE Registry Network will develop and grow over an incremental span of years. As it originated from a Retrospective data collection (phase 1) to a Prospective baseline collection (phase 2) and ultimately Project Specific (phase 3) it will continue to grow and mature dependent on investigator rigor, interest and funding.