Charles Dotter. MD
Angioplasty was born 55 years ago today when Dr. Charles T. Dotter, a radiologist in Portland, Oregon, performed the first angioplasty. But it wasn’t in the heart; it was in the leg.
An 82-year-old woman was suffering from great pain in her left foot because of blocked circulation in her leg. Her toes had become gangrenous and there was an non-healing ulcer. Amputation was recommended by the physicians at Oregon Health Sciences University, but the woman refused.
Filed under Endovascular, History, Innovators, Video
Dr. Frank J. Veith
Today was day one of the 45th Annual Veith Symposium in New York City. Started by Dr. Frank J. Veith, a pioneer in the field of endovascular approaches to vascular surgery, this five-day event covers the entire field of minimally invasive approaches to clinical situations that just a couple decades ago were the exclusive purview of open surgery.
The whole field of endovascular repair and intervention has grown exponentially since the first endovascular repair of an abdominal aortic aneurysm (EVAR) was performed by Dr. Juan Parodi in 1990, but it took quite some time to be accepted as a standard of care. Today the endovascular approach is the preferred procedure to repair an AAA and this is because of the advances in medical device design and manufacturing and the dedication of physicians to this less invasive non-surgical approach, physicians who will be attending this year’s Veith Symposium.
Continue reading
Filed under Endovascular, History, Innovators, Meetings & Conferences, Video
Abbott’s Absorb “Dissolving Stent”
There’s a lesson for the Absorb BVS in the history of interventional cardiology (an area of particular interest in this 40th anniversary of angioplasty year). There’s no question that the concept of a stent that dissolves and disappears is intriguing, and potentially clinically significant. Stents were invented because after balloon-only dilatation, the artery would sometimes collapse, or the spongy plaque would not compress neatly against the arterial wall, or the plaque would regrow, resulting in a very high rate of restenosis (reblocking of the artery).
Stents prevented all of this. Stents reduced the 3-5% acute closure rate that sent patients to bypass surgery after balloon angioplasty almost to zero. Continue reading
Filed under Bioresorbable Stents/Scaffolds, History, Stent
Angioplasty balloon being manufactured on the kitchen table in Gruentzig’s apartment
Today marks the 39th anniversary of the first percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA) which was performed in 1977 by Dr. Andreas R. Gruentzig in Zurich, Switzerland. This angioplasty procedure utilized an expandable balloon, fashioned on a kitchen table in Gruentzig’s apartment by Gruentzig’s assistant, Maria Schlumpf (note the bottle of wine…and yes, she used Krazy Glue). So, as I always ruefully think about on my own birthday, one is actually celebrating the completion of that numeric year, and sometime later today, coronary angioplasty will be entering its 40th year. Kind of amazing. Continue reading
Filed under History, Innovators, Video
Today being TBT (Throw Back Thursday) on Twitter, Dr. Jordan Safirstein (@CardiacConsult) posted a photo this morning of a poster that appeared 40 years ago at the 1976 American Heart Association meeting. (At the left is our photo of that poster from our history archive.)
It’s a meaningful poster, since it was the first public presentation of the concept and initial studies of something called “Percutaneous Dilation of Coronary Artery Stenosis” or simply, coronary angioplasty. This procedure had not yet been done in humans, but this poster directly led to that ground-breaking development within a year. Continue reading
Filed under History, Innovators, Meetings & Conferences, Video
Mason Sones in a Philips cath lab of the 50’s
This week the Radiological Society of North America, a.k.a. RSNA, is holding its annual meeting in Chicago. RSNA is an international society of radiologists, medical physicists and other medical professionals with more than 54,000 members from 136 countries across the globe. And this year the 55,000 attendees in Chicago are celebrating something special: the 100th anniversary of the RSNA.
To help honor the work of the Society, Angioplasty.Org would like to offer the video below which details the impact that imaging had on our field: the treatment of coronary artery disease. Continue reading
Filed under ACC, Angiograms, History, Imaging, Innovators, Meetings & Conferences, Video
Seton Medical Center
It was over a dozen years ago that I saw my first transradial PCI. I had booked a photo shoot with Dr. Felix Millhouse at Seton Medical Center in Daly City, California, to get some shots for our web site. I did one case and was told that Dr. Millhouse was doing an urgent PCI in cath lab #2. So I went over to shoot it, but by the time I got to the lab, I was too late. I saw a man with his arm extended off the table. And Dr. Millhouse was removing his gloves. “Sorry,” he said. “We’re all done.” Continue reading
Filed under Business & Industry, Global Trends, History, Transradial Approach
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