The nascent field of interventional medicine took a giant step forward in the 1950s, when the Swedish radiologist Sven Seldinger perfected the technique of percutaneous catheter insertion into the blood vessels using a needle, guidewire, and catheter. Through a puncture in the femoral artery, doctors could now gain access to any part of the body through the vascular system without resorting to a vascular cutdown and open surgical closure.
Seldinger’s simple invention helped usher in the modern era of interventional cardiology. Stenting, angioplasty, and uterine artery embolization are only a few of the procedures made possible through percutaneous catheterization, and their use has exploded over the past half-century. According to the American Heart Association, the number of inpatient cardiac catheterization procedures alone jumped 334% between 1979 and 2004, when their estimated number reached 1
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