[Sixty years of mitral valve surgery].

On June 10, 1948, Charles Bailey, MD, operated successfully a mitral valve stenosis in Philadelphia and six days later, Dwight Harken, MD, performed the same operation in Boston, marking the onset of cardiovascular surgery. These successful operations were preceded by several failures and even deaths, that had to be overcome by both pioneers. This manuscript reviews several cases and situations that these surgeons had to face during the development of cardiovascular surgery, that changed the natural history of cardiac diseases. The history culminates with the successful mitral valve replacement, performed by Albert Starr using a mechanical valve designed by him and Lowell Edwards, a retired engineer whose primary interest was to develop an artificial heart. The first mitral commissurotomy in Chile was performed by Svante Tornvall, MD, and Pedro Uribe, MD, at van Buren Hospital in Valparaiso in December, 1950. The first mitral valve replacement was performed by Hugo Salvestrini, MD, in 1964 at the Catholic University Hospital.