Coronary Angioplasty

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Abstract
Dilating atherosclerotic vascular obstructions by mechanical force was first described by Dotter and Judkins in 1964.1 Force was applied to the obstructing atheroma by passing catheters of increasing size through the stenoses. Although the technique was used infrequently in the United States, Zeitler et al. described a large series of patients in whom angioplasty by the Dotter technique was successful in peripheral arteries,2 with long-term follow-up demonstrating sustained patency of the dilated sites. Gruentzig developed a new method for applying mechanical force to atheroma — barotrauma with a balloon at the tip of a small catheter. This approach had the . . .