Impact of Compound Disasters on Surgical Interventions for Infective Endocarditis: Insights from COVID-19 and the 2024 Noto Earthquake

The concurrent occurrence of COVID-19 and the 2024 Noto Peninsula earthquake resulted in a “compound disaster” in Japan. This retrospective study, spanning 11 years (2015–2025), examines the impact of these crises on trends in cardiovascular surgery, focusing on infective endocarditis (IE). A total of 2444 surgical cases were analyzed across three distinct periods: pre-pandemic (2015–2019), pandemic (2020–2023), and compound disasters (2024). While overall surgical volumes exhibited fluctuations, there was a notable increase in the number of interventions for IE and renal failure in 2024. Additionally, the 2024 IE cohort revealed a significant epidemiological shift, characterized by a younger median age (56 years compared to 70 years pre-pandemic), absence of pre-existing valvular disease, and a marked rise in blood culture-negative endocarditis (BCNE), which accounted for 83.3% of IE cases. In 2025, the number of surgical IE cases decreased to zero, highlighting the acute nature of the peak in 2024. These findings illustrate that compound disasters can disrupt cardiovascular surgical trends and underscore the susceptibility of IE to compromised healthcare access and environmental stress. The development of resilient diagnostic pathways is essential for managing complex public health emergencies.