Spotlight on 40 years of angioplasty

This new "disruptive" technology is among the most important medical breakthroughs to date. TAVI emerged in 2002 to profoundly alter the landscape of cardiovascular medicine.

The transformation in the field of interventional cardiology is unprecedented. Today, interventional cardiology encompasses an ever-growing list of diagnostic and therapeutic percutaneous procedures performed in the cathlab.

On April 16, 2002, at the Charles Nicolle University Hospital in Rouen, France, the Interventional Cardiologist, Professor Alain Cribier performed the first transcatheter aortic valve replacement procedure in the world. He used a Prosthetic valve thrombosis (PVT) percutaneous heart valve.

In 2002, Alain Cribier revolutionised the field by introducing transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) as a complementary technique to surgery. Find out more about his early life and studies.

Interested in learning about the origins, evolution and future of the interventional cardiology field, follow the traveling Expo arround the world and Join the conversation about the history of angioplasty on Twitter by using the hashtag #angio40

Andreas Grüntzig’s vision and perspicacity drove an entire new field of cardiology. This page is dedicated to his personal life and accomplishments with a dedicated tribute from Spencer B. King III

Patrick Serruys has been instrumental in developing several key innovations in coronary angioplasty, including drug-eluting stents and quantitative coronary angiography. Furthermore, he became interested in developing bioresorbable scaffolds when he felt guilty about implanting a metallic stent into such “delicate biological structure” as the coronary vessel.

Antonio Colombo believes that understanding the history of angioplasty is important because it enables you to know “how things are shaped, how difficulties are overcome, and how you are able to use intelligence, persistence, and knowledge to achieve goals”. In this interview with The Daily Wire,...

Spencer B. King performed some of the first coronary angioplasty procedures in the USA—having recently received a thank-you from the first patient that he treated. He tells The Daily Wire that the steerable guidewire, rather than the stent, was the greatest advance in angioplasty and that...

There were many precursors to Andreas Grüntzig whose work made his achievement possible. The Exposition features a gallery of six of these pioneers. One such visionary was Charles Dotter (1920–1985), who in 1963, with the first use of a diagnostic catheter for a therapeutic purpose, invented...