The first edition of Cardiovascular Guidelines was published in 1991. It received an immediate positive response. Professor Garry Jennings, director of the Alfred and Baker Medical Unit at the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne, contributed to the first five editions. Cardiovascular Guidelines version two (1994) benefitted enormously from the general practitioner evaluation network established in 1992. At first coordinated by Dr Duncan Howard, the evaluation network recruited 550 doctors. From 1995 it was coordinated by Margaret Beavis. In 2018 the evaluation network included hospital pharmacists and junior hospital doctors, and retained an essential role in the evaluation and feedback process for every new edition of each title.

TGL board member Professor Tony Smith chaired two TGL cardiovascular writing groups. Dr Harry Gibbs, who joined the writing group for the third edition, provided an important Queensland perspective as the director of vascular medicine at the Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane. Professor Debra Rowett from South Australia contributed to four editions of Cardiovascular Guidelines, beginning with the third in 1999. She joined the TGL board in 2016.

In 2000 the Royal College of Nursing agreed to endorse Cardiovascular Guidelines, Respiratory Guidelines and Antibiotic Guidelines.

Sales of Cardiovascular Guidelines during the 1990s and 2000s were especially strong, rivalled only by Dermatology Guidelines and Antibiotic Guidelines.

The fourth edition of Cardiovascular Guidelines was published in 2003, the fifth in 2008, the sixth in 2012, and the seventh in 2018. Rob Moulds chaired the expert groups for three editions.