An impact of surgery for infective endocarditis on survival and heart failure has been analyzed. A total of 131 patients with IE have been observed during 1999-2001. Eighty seven of them were male and 44 female, mean age - 50+/-16 years. Sixty three (48.1%) patients underwent surgery, remaining 68 (51.9%) were treated conservatively. The surgical patients had signs of remarkably worse heart failure (p=0.0001), higher grade aortic (p=0.0001) and mitral (p=0.001) valve regurgitation. Surgery resulted in significant improvement of heart failure (p=0.01). Hospital mortality was 25.2% and did not differ between the groups. Elimination of the influence of complications revealed reduced hospital mortality of all patients by 9.9% and mortality of NYHA III-IV patients by 23.9% (p=0.02) as a result of surgery.