Abstract

I read with interest the article by Vendramin and colleagues , reminding us with the 70th anniversary for the first artificial heart valve that was invented by Hufnagel and was first implanted in 1952. This was in an era, where standard heart valve replacement was not feasible, and the heart lung machine was in its very primitive phase to allow such operation to be performed in the way we do it today. This made me dig a bit in the literature and read more in depth about Dr. Hufnagel, one of the most gifted American surgeons and his pioneer work.