The Latin American Association of Cardiac and Endovascular Surgery (LACES) statement regarding the clinical practice guideline recommendations for the recently released 2020 ACC/ AHA guidelines for the management of patients with valvular heart disease

Abstract

Scientific evidence in the cardiological arena has progressed enormously in the last couple of years. It is a huge challenge for respected societies such as AHA and ACC to undertake the burden of providing to the world their recommendations for clinical practice based on this evidence. The Latin American Association of Cardiac and Endovascular Surgery (LACES) would like to thank the authors involved in such a task.
As a growing association that represents an economic and healthcare reality that is different from others, we have decided to carefully select guidelines that consider our socio-economic situation. As such, in this statement, we will highlight the aspects of the recently released AHA/ACC Guidelines for the Management of Patients with Valvular Heart Disease 2020 with which we disagree intending to support Latin-American surgeons in their practice(1).