34 years ago, Andreas Gruentzig performed the first coronary angioplasty. Rather than cutting open the chest, sawing through the sternum and sewing a bypass conduit (harvested from the leg or internal mammary artery) into the coronary artery, he elegantly threaded a balloon catheter to the blockage through a small incision in the femoral (groin) artery, in an awake patient. He then inflated the balloon, compressing the plaque against the arterial wall and opening the artery. The procedure was a total success and his first patient, Adolph Bachmann, is alive and well today! (see video clip: ” The 1st Angioplasty”.)
But more importantly than just inventing angioplasty, Gruentzig invented a method for treating patients non-surgically, from the inside-out! What Gruentzig said was: Continue reading
One of the things about working at Angioplasty.Org that warms my heart (pun intended) is connecting with patients around the world. Our 
Just a reminder to you interventional cardiologists, cath lab nurses and technologists who are interested in learning how to do angiograms, angioplasty and stents from the wrist — next Saturday, January 15, is SCAI’s second transradial program, being held in Philadelphia with an “all-star” faculty of transradial experts (see “
A lost story this past couple of weeks has been an “admission” by the American Heart Association that the number of angioplasties performed in the United States is actually half of what the AHA has been saying all these years.
Monday’s 
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