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(Circulation. 1996;93:1621-1629.)
© 1996 American Heart Association, Inc.

Articles

Angioplasty From Bench to Bedside to Bench

Spencer B. King, III, MD

From the Andreas Gruentzig Cardiovascular Center, Emory University, Atlanta, Ga.

Correspondence to Spencer B. King III, MD, Andreas Gruentzig Cardiovascular Center, Emory University Hospital, 1364 Clifton Rd, Suite F606, Atlanta, GA 30322.

Key Words: angioplasty • coronary disease • revascularization • balloon

	Introduction

 
The patient, a 42-year-old accountant, was suddenly aware of a severe pressure in his midchest. On arrival at the hospital, the pain seemed even more intense, and the ECG confirmed a large, anterior myocardial infarction. In the laboratory, the anterior descending artery was occluded for a few minutes—then open—then the pain was gone! Technical problems of a torn artery were repaired without further pain with the help of a metal supporting stent. Four days later, the patient's question as he walked out of the hospital was, "When can I return to work?"

This is the way it is, but it's not the way it was. How did we arrive at this happy ending that is so common today?

Some say that coronary interventions were inevitable and were the natural progression of our expanding knowledge of vascular disease, but it did not happen that way. The development of angioplasty in all its forms (balloons, stents, ablative devices, and other devices) had a single catalyst, but there were many who added reagents to keep the reaction going. Andreas Gruentzig made interventional cardiology possible, and his is a most interesting story.

	Prelude to Angioplasty

 
Gruentzig would not have developed angioplasty were it not for the pioneers who went before him. Although Forssmann was called one of the least intellectual to win the Nobel prize, his persistence in the face of adversity was a characteristic shared by Gruentzig. Forssmann's landmark placement of catheters in his own heart¹ achieved very little practical use until World War II, when . . . [Full Text of this Article]