Currently, aortic stenosis is the main indication for cardiac surgery in western countries. With the aim of describing the clinical and surgical characteristics and the short-term outcome of current surgical treatment, we carried out a retrospective study of 238 patients (mean age 71 years, 43% female) who underwent surgery during 2002-2003. Of these, 73% had a EuroSCORE >6. Surgical procedures included isolated aortic valve replacement in 61%, ascending aorta surgery in 14%, coronary artery by-pass grafting in 21%, and mitral surgery in 4%. The in-hospital mortality rate in the 30 days after surgery was 7.1%. Multivariate analysis, adjusted for age, sex and left ventricular ejection fraction, showed that only concomitant coronary artery by-pass grafting was significantly associated with in-hospital mortality (odds ratio=4; P=.019). Factors associated with mortality at 18 months were: previous neurological disease (hazard ratio [HR]=3.25; P=.017), prosthesis diameter <21 mm (HR=2.86; P=.018), and coronary artery by-pass grafting (HR=2.35; P=.05).