[Evolution of cardiovascular surgery: the Brazilian saga. A history of work, pioneering experience and success].

Cardiovascular surgical procedures/history/trends. The cardiovascular surgery was and has been intensely scrutinized and evaluated. Cardiac surgeons have, in turn, consistently directed the efforts in collecting, analyzing and applying the surgical results in order to improve quality and reassess conducts and procedures1. In this context, the Brazilian cardiac surgery is one of the most respected in the world, with 116,821 procedures in 2008 according to DATASUS2, allowing an renowned institution, such as The Heart Institute (InCor), to have performed more than 71,000 procedures only between 1984 and 2007, as reported by Lisboa et al3, at “Evolution of Cardiovascular Surgery at the Instituto do Coração: Analysis of 71,305 Surgeries”, published on page 162.