Euryclides de Jesus Zerbini

Euryclides de Jesus Zerbini (10 May 1912, Guaratinguetá, São Paulo - 23 October 1993) was a noted Brazilian physician and foremost cardiac surgeon. He is internationally known for performing in 1968 the first heart transplantation in Latin America (and the third in the world), and for creating the famous and respected clinical and research center Instituto do Coração da Universidade de São Paulo (Heart Institute of the University of São Paulo), in São Paulo, Brazil.

Early years and training
Zerbini was the son of an Italian immigrant. He studied medicine at the Medical School of the University of São Paulo, in São Paulo city, graduating on 1935. He specialized in thoracic surgery in the Santa Casa de Misericórdia de São Paulo under Prof. Alípio Correia Neto and in the following year he accepted a position of instructor at his alma mater. His specialization studies in the field continued in 1944, in the United States. Upon his return to Brazil, he organized a team of heart surgery at the University's teaching hospital (Hospital das Clínicas da Universidade de São Paulo) and became director of the hospital's medical emergency services. His first area of activity in thoracic surgery was in lung operations in tuberculosis patients, but he soon progressed to other areas of cardiovascular surgery.

Developments
Dr. Zerbini's team advanced considerably the scientific and medical status of heart surgery in Brazil and trained hundreds of surgeons. With other colleagues from the USP hospital, such as prominent Dr. Luciano V. Décourt, in 1975 he founded the Heart Institute, which became the best cardiovascular health center in the country. By means of experimental surgery, Zerbini and his group developed several new surgical techniques, which were then applied in human patients. He was one of the first to work with extracorporeal circulation brain-lung machines (he built his own) and the use of an auxiliary heart transplant for providing assisted circulation, as well as to develop heterologous and homologous artificial heart valves, using dura mater. Other important advances by his group were in the surgery of congenital heart diseases, such as the tetralogy of Fallot, aortic aneurysms, etc.

Heart transplantation
Zerbini developed also his own approach to heart transplantation, and performed the first one, on May 26 1968, just five months after the South African surgeon Christiaan Barnard (1922-2001). Unfortunately, the patient survived for 28 days only, but Zerbini persevered with three additional operations until the technique was perfected. All except one died in a short time, due to transplant rejection problems (cyclosporin and other immunosuppressants were not available at that time), and Zerbini had to interrupt the operations. In 1985, Dr. Zerbini once again pioneered in the field, by performing the first heart transplantation in a patient with Chagas disease. Today, after the rejection problem was solved, it is a common operation in Brazil, performed on thousands of patients every year.

Awards and contributions
During his 58 years of professional career, Dr. Zerbini received 125 honour awards, prizes and titles. He participated in 314 medical and scientific conferences, published more than 450 papers (248 thereof indexed in Medline), and performed more than 40,000 operations. He worked indefatigably until a few months before his death, by cancer.

His legacy was preserved by a non-profit medical institution affiliated to the Heart Institute, the Zerbini Foundation. There is also a medical award bearing his name, instituted by the Foundation. He left many disciples, many of whom count among the best and most influential cardiac surgeons in Brazil, such as former Brazilian Minister of Health Dr. Adib Domingos Jatene, who succeeded Dr. Zerbini as the Heart Institute's general director.