Category Archives: History

Past, Present & Future of Transradial Angioplasty with Dr. Ferdinand Kiemeneij

Dr. Ferdinand KiemeneijOn the occasion of the 20th anniversary of transradial intervention (TRI), I talked with Dr. Ferdinand Kiemeneij, “the father of transradial intervention” who practices interventional cardiology at Onze Lieve Vrouwe Gasthuis (OLVG), Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

We covered a wide range of topics regarding TRI, where angioplasty and stents are placed via the wrist, and we’ve just posted the two-part interview on Angioplasty.Org. Continue reading

Leave a Comment

Filed under Cost Effectiveness, Global Trends, History, Innovators, Interviews, Japan, Patient Experience, Stent, Transradial Approach

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

Leave a Comment

Filed under History, Innovators, Interviews, Patients, Video

Back to the Future: Drug-Eluting Angioplasty Balloons, Dissolving Stents, FFR and More

Back to the FutureI added a new category “tag” to the stent blog today: “Back to the Future.” And I hereby declare this to be an internet meme, even if it’s only a meme on this site!

I added this category because every TCT or ACC or AHA or ISET or ESC or EuroPCR meeting that I cover, I am struck by the fact that the newest, latest, greatest innovations are all ideas that were present at the genesis of this field of interventional cardiology. Continue reading

1 Comment

Filed under Back to the Future, Drug-Eluting Stents, FFR, History, Meetings & Conferences, Peripheral Artery Disease (PAD), Video

Ad Hoc Angioplasty: The Patient Is On The Table

Cardiologist and patient in cath lab

Cardiologist talks to a patient “on the table” in cath lab

Something that is “on the table” is defined as an item that is “up for discussion.” And this week The Society for Cardiac Angiography and Interventions (SCAI) issued a consensus statement about the proper use of “ad hoc PCI” — and the patient was definitely on the table, up for discussion, part of the conversation.

Since we’re into definitions, ad hoc PCI is the scenario in which a diagnostic catheterization is followed in the same session by PCI (angioplasty and stents). And this is a common scenario: in New York State, for example, 80% of all angioplasties are done in the same session as the diagnostic angiogram, although the vast majority of these are emergency or primary angioplasties, where a patient in the midst of a heart attack (or close to it) is brought into the cath lab and the blockage is opened up, saving the heart muscle and possibly the patient’s life. Continue reading

2 Comments

Filed under COURAGE, FAME I / FAME II, FFR, Heart Attack, History, Optimal Medical Therapy, Patient Empowerment, Patients, Shared Decision-Making, Stent

Angioplasty: From the Legs to the Heart and Back to the Legs

Charles Dotter, MD in LIFE Magazine

Charles Dotter, MD in LIFE Magazine, August 1964

Angioplasty! A word at the center of the recent TCT meeting in Miami, attended by 12,000 healthcare professionals. A word coined half-a-century ago by Dr. Charles Dotter, a radiologist who practiced at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, Oregon.

Dotter’s idea was simple: to open up arterial blockages in the legs from the inside out: by snaking a catheter down the circulatory system to the blockage, instead of cutting through the various layers of body tissue to repair the artery through open surgery. Continue reading

Leave a Comment

Filed under History, Innovators, Meetings & Conferences, Peripheral Artery Disease (PAD), Video

An Informed Patient is a Healthier Patient

Doctor and patientFindings in a report issued last week by the Blue Shield of California Foundation demonstrate that an informed patient is an empowered patient: one who feels more comfortable asking questions of one’s healthcare provider, and making decisions about one’s own healthcare.

While this equation may seem obvious, the report puts numbers to the equation, marking the significant differences between the informed and uninformed patient. Most importantly, the patient population studied consisted of low income families with annual household incomes less than 200% of the federal poverty level, or about $46,000 for a family of four. Continue reading

4 Comments

Filed under History, Patient Empowerment, Patient Experience, Patients, Shared Decision-Making

35th Anniversary of Coronary Angioplasty

Angioplasty balloon being manufactured on the kitchen table in Gruentzig’s apartment

Today is the 35th 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).

The patient was Adolph Bachman, age 37 (the same age as Gruentzig), who was scheduled for bypass surgery. Gruentzig has been working on this idea for several years; it was an idea first germinated by a U.S. radiologist, Dr. Charles Dotter, in the early 60’s. Dotter in fact coined the term “angioplasty” to describe opening up a blocked artery not through open surgery, but by threading a catheter into the artery and opening it up from the inside out: less traumatic, quicker, and possibly (he thought) more durable.

Dotter’s idea was mocked as crazy (he became known as “Crazy Charlie”) by the surgical community of the day and it took years for Dotter’s concept to travel across the world to Europe, where Gruentzig learned about it. He added a balloon to the tip of the catheter and, after experimenting in the lab in Zurich, he teamed up with Dr. Richard K. Myler of San Francisco to try the idea intraoperatively in patients who were having open heart surgery.

When the concept had been proven in a few of these surgical cases, Gruentzig returned to Zurich to attempt doing an angioplasty in the cath lab without surgery: percutaneously — just through a needle stick, the same procedure as a diagnostic angiogram. Except with a balloon. That’s where our video below begins: the story of the first angioplasty.

(By the way, the clip below is excerpted from my feature-length award-winning documentary, “PTCA: A History,” which tells the whole tale of how this “crazy” idea turned into a major branch of modern medicine. The complete 72 minute DVD is available for sale on our web site — of course!)

Continue reading

16 Comments

Filed under History, Innovators, Video