[The evolution of cardiac surgery]

Cardiac surgery roots date back to the first half of the last century. Subsequently, thanks to the heart-lung machine development, which allowed to operate within the cardiac chambers under direct vision, the huge potentials of this discipline in cardiovascular disease treatment have fully manifested. In the following years, until the end of the last century, the surgical treatment of heart disease progressed steadily and consistently. From the beginning of the millennium, the discipline of cardiac surgery underwent a strong evolutionary process with the advent of minimally invasive procedures and transcatheter techniques. In this article we will briefly review the history of the evolution of cardiac surgery. Finally, possible future perspectives will be outlined.