Resumo

MORALES GOMEZ, JOSÉ. 60 AÑOS DE CIRUGÍA EN EL INSTITUTO NACIONAL DE ENFERMEDADES RESPIRATORIAS. Rev. Inst. Nal. Enf. Resp. Mex. [online]. 2004, vol.17, n.2, pp.109-116. ISSN 0187-7585.

Sixty years after the birth of Thoracic Surgery at the National Institute of Respiratory Diseases, its evolution can be associated to significant events in the field of Medicine in Mexico and the world. When the tuberculosis bacillus was discovered, one of the best alternatives for treatment was surgery. At the beginning of the century, the news in Mexico talked about the consequences of tuberculosis. At the same time, the Mexican revolution had started. Thoracic surgery emerged together with these events. At that time, Tlalpan was a war field for Zapatistas and constitutionalists. In 1930, General Lázaro Cárdenas decreed the construction of a tuberculosis sanatorium, which was concluded in 1935. The Thoracic Surgery service was inaugurated on January 11, 1944. Along the twentieth century the medicine that involved thoracic surgery progressed notoriously. The first bronchoscopy was performed in 1933, and the first lobectomy in 1943. The first intracardiac angiocardiography was made in 1946 as well as the first arterial closure. Meanwhile, the structure of the country changed significantly. The first heart transplant was done in 1967, and survived 18 days. Various types of surgery were developed, some of which have presently been abandoned, like extra pleural pneumothorax, pulmonary collapse surgery and fistulectomies, and other procedures have been improved, like open lung biopsy and pleural decortication. A total of 17,083 surgical procedures were recorded in the first 50 years of the service. During the last 20 years we have practiced the most innovative techniques of surgery such as video surgery, mediastinostomy, extended mediastinoscopy, use of LASER in the airway and auto suture techniques, as long as unilateral lung transplant, tromboendarterectomy, tracheal surgery and lung volume reduction surgery. The new and universal profile of thoracic surgeons has been integrated to the service as human resources formation with institutional representation in several States of Mexico, Central America, South America and the Caribbean.

Palavras-chave : Thoracic Surgery Service; National Institute of Respiratory Diseases; history.