The treatment for patients diagnosed with endocarditis is intravenous (I.V.) antibiotic therapy. This use of antibiotics requires a significant dose for a long period of time – as long as six weeks, depending on the type of infectious agent causing the disease. It is important that the antibiotics used are the correct ones for the organism that is causing the infection.

Recently, some studies have shown that oral antibiotic therapy may work with certain patients. Oral therapy works if the exact bacterial cause of the endocarditis is known, if the bacteria are susceptible to antimicrobial therapy, and if there is some other reason to avoid I.V. therapy.

More and more frequently, surgery is also used to treat the damage to the heart valves caused by endocarditis. This is especially true:

The most common surgery associated with endocarditis is heart valve surgery repair or replacement.