http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interventional_cardiology
Interventional cardiology is a branch of cardiology that deals specifically with the catheter based treatment of structural heart diseases. Andreas Gruentzig is considered the father of interventional cardiology after the
development of angioplasty by interventional radiologist, Dr. Charles Dotter.[1]
Tooooooooooootalllllllllllllllllllllllllllllly different fields that have nothing to do with one another.
🙄
You are right about the personalities of the folks in each respective field though. The IR folks tend to be laid back, and the cards folks... well, they tend to be like you.
Edit: More history since it's interesting...
Development of the diagnostic coronary angiogram
In 1958, Interventional Radiologist, Dr. Charles Dotter began working on methods to visualize the coronary anatomy via sequential radiographic films. He invented a method known as occlusive aortography in an animal model. Occlusive aortography involved the transient occlusion of the aorta and subsequent injection of a small amount of radiographic contrast agent into the aortic root and subsequent serial x-rays to visualize the coronary arteries.[6] This method produced impressive images of the coronary anatomy. Dotter later reported that all the animals used in the procedure survived.[citation needed]
Later that same year, while performing an aortic root aortography, Mason Sones, a pediatric cardiologist at the Cleveland Clinic, noted that the catheter had accidentally entered the patient's right coronary artery. Before the catheter could be removed, 30cc of contrast agent had been injected.[7] While the patient went into ventricular fibrillation, the dangerous arrhythmia was terminated by Dr. Sones promptly performing a precordial thump which restored sinus rhythm. This became the world's first selective coronary arteriogram. Until that time, it was believed that even a small amount of contrast agent within a coronary artery would be fatal.
Until the 1950s, placing a catheter into either the arterial or venous system involved a "cut down" procedure, in which the soft tissues were dissected out of the way until the artery or vein was directly visualized and subsequently punctured by a catheter; this was known as the Sones technique. The percutaneous approach that is widely used today was developed by Sven-Ivar Seldinger in 1953.[8][9] This method was used initially for the visualization of the peripheral arteries.[citation needed] Percutaneous access of the artery or vein is still commonly known as the Seldinger technique. The use of the Seldinger technique for visualizing the coronary arteries was described by Ricketts and Abrams in 1962 and Judkins in 1967.[10][11]
By the late 1960s, Melvin Judkins had begun work on creating catheters that were specially shaped to reach the coronary arteries to perform selective coronary angiography. His initial work involved shaping stiff wires and comparing those shapes to radiographs of the ascending aorta to determine if the shape appeared promising. Then he would place the stiff wire inside a flexible catheter and use a heat-fixation method to permanently shape the catheter. In the first use of these catheters in humans, each catheter was specifically shaped to match the size and shape of the aorta of the subject. His work was documented in 1967, and by 1968 the Judkins catheters were manufactured in a limited number of fixed tip shapes.[12] Catheters in these shapes carry his name and are still used to this day for selective coronary angiography.
Dawn of the interventional era
The use of a balloon-tipped catheter for the treatment of atherosclerotic vascular disease was first described by Charles Dotter and Melvin Judkins in 1964, when they used it to treat a case of atherosclerotic disease in the superficial femoral artery of the left leg.[13][14] Building on their work and his own research involving balloon-tipped catheters, Andreas Gruentzig performed the first success percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (known as PTCA or percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI)) on a human on September 16, 1977 at University Hospital, Zurich.[15] The results of the procedure were presented at the American Heart Association meeting two months later to a stunned audience of cardiologists. In the subsequent three years, Dr. Gruentzig performed coronary angioplasties in 169 patients in Zurich, while teaching the practice of coronary angioplasty to a field of budding interventional cardiologists. It is interesting to note that ten years later, nearly 90 percent of these individuals were still alive.[15] By the mid 1980s, over 300,000 PTCAs were being performed on a yearly basis, equalling the number of bypass surgeries being performed for coronary artery disease.[16]
