History of Invasive and Interventional Cardiology - Catheterization of Humans

Catheterization of Humans

The technique of angiography itself was first developed in 1927 by the Portuguese physician Egas Moniz at the University of Lisbon for cerebral angiography, the viewing of brain vasculature by X-ray radiation with the aid of a contrast medium introduced by catheter. Coronary catheterization was first performed when Werner Forssmann, in 1929, created an incision in one of his left antecubital veins and inserted a catheter into his venous system. He then guided the catheter by fluoroscopy into his right atrium. Subsequently he walked up a flight of stairs to the radiology department and documented the procedure by having a chest roentgenogram performed. Over the next year, catheters were placed in a similar manner into the right ventricle, and measurements of pressure and cardiac output (using the Fick principle) were performed.

In the early 1940s, André Cournand, in collaboration with Dickinson Richards, performed more systematic measurements of the hemodynamics of the heart. For their work in the discovery of cardiac catheterization and hemodynamic measurements, Cournand, Forssmann, and Richards shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1956.