Monthly Archives: April 2013

Andreas Gruentzig on “Complications”

Andreas Gruentzig MD, inventor of PTCA

Andreas Gruentzig MD, Inventor of PTCA

The Patient Forum on Angioplasty.Org receives over 40,000 page views a month. And patients who post to the Forum are a very select subset: they are usually patients who have experienced some type of complication.

I’ve called it our “Complaint Dept.”, not to demean or belittle it in any way, but to characterize it for our readers. If you read through some of the topics, you would think that angioplasty is fraught with negatives and the risks outweigh the benefits. And you’d be wrong because the number of complications is the numerator; the denominator is all of the procedures done, currently almost 700,000 PCIs annually in the U.S. alone.

So, complications occur in only a small percentage of cases.

Of course, if you or a loved one is one of those complications, you really don’t care about the percentages; you want help and answers. Continue reading

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Filed under History, Innovators, Interviews, Patients, Video

Dr. Ajay Kirtane Named Co-Director of TCT 25

Dr. Ajay J. Kirtane

Dr. Ajay J. Kirtane

The TCT (Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics) annual meeting is, according to its organizers, the world’s largest and most important conference in interventional cardiovascular medicine. And this year marks the 25th Anniversary of the TCT (note: the entire field of interventional cardiology is only 36 years of age).

This year also marks Dr. Ajay Kirtane’s role as an official Co-Director of the TCT, in recognition of his contributions and dedication to the meeting. Continue reading

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Filed under Meetings & Conferences, Transradial Approach