When was Open Heart Surgery created?

Open-heart surgery has its origins in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Here is a timeline of key developments in the history of open-heart surgery:

1887: German surgeon Ludwig Rehn performs the first successful pericardiectomy (removal of the sac surrounding the heart) under local anesthesia.

1893: American surgeon Daniel Hale Williams performs the first successful operation to repair a stab wound to the heart under local anesthesia.

1896: German surgeon Ernst Ferdinand Sauerbruch develops a negative-pressure chamber that allows surgeons to operate on the lungs and heart without the chest collapsing.

1925: American surgeon Clarence Crafoord performs the first successful closed-heart surgery, repairing a coarctation of the aorta (narrowing of the aorta) using a temporary clamp.

1938: American surgeon Robert Gross performs the first successful open-heart surgery on a human patient, a young girl with tetralogy of Fallot (a combination of four heart defects). Gross uses a temporary bypass pump to circulate blood during the surgery.

1948: American surgeon Alfred Blalock and Chilean surgeon Vivien Thomas perform the first successful Blalock-Taussig shunt, a surgery that increases blood flow to the lungs in children with tetralogy of Fallot. The procedure involves connecting the subclavian artery (which supplies blood to the arm) to the pulmonary artery (which carries blood from the heart to the lungs).

1953: American surgeon John Gibbon and his team develop the first successful heart-lung machine (extracorporeal circulation), allowing for prolonged open-heart procedures. The machine pumps blood from the body and into the lungs, providing oxygen and removing waste products.

1960: American surgeon Charles Hufnagel develops the first ball-valve prosthesis for the aortic valve. This marks the beginning of the era of valve replacements in open-heart surgeries.

1967: South African surgeon Christiaan Barnard performs the first successful human heart transplant in Cape Town, South Africa. The patient, Louis Washkansky, survives for 18 days.

Open-heart surgery continued to advance with the development of new surgical techniques, instruments, and materials. Today, it is a common and successful procedure to treat a wide range of heart conditions.