Cardiovascular Surgery Učební texty Univerzity Karlovy v Praze

Michal Semrád, Milan Krajíček, Pavel Šebesta

The history of surgical approaches to many diseases spans several centuries. However, the last century, and particularly its second half, witnessed an establishment of specialized surgical fields, such as urology surgery, neurosurgery and thoracic surgery, as a result of the rapidly growing knowledge of physiology, pathophysiology, blood transfusion, infection control as well as thanks to excellent new diagnostic methods and technological discoveries. After the Second World War, successful cardiac surgeries were carried out and later, in the 1960s, these were followed by vascular surgeries. The progress in sonography and arteriography, along with the development of new instruments, extracorporeal circulation, vascular substitutes and artificial valves.