Charles Theodore Dotter (1920–1985) was a pioneering US vascular radiologist who is credited with developing interventional radiology. Dotter, together with his trainee Dr Melvin P. Judkins, described angioplasty in 1964.
Dotter invented angioplasty and the catheter-delivered stent, which were first used to treat peripheral arterial disease. On January 16, 1964, Dotter percutaneously dilated a tight, localized stenosis of the superficial femoral artery (SFA) in an 82-year-old woman with painful leg ischemia and gangrene who refused leg amputation. After successful dilation of the stenosis with a guide wire and coaxial Teflon catheters, the circulation returned to her leg. The dilated artery stayed open until her death from pneumonia two and a half years later. He also developed liver biopsy through the jugular vein, initially in animal models and in 1973 in humans.
Charles Dotter is commonly known as the "Father of Interventional Radiology."