Charles Theodore Dotter (14 June 1920 – 15 February 1985) was a pioneering US

vascular The blood vessels are the components of the circulatory system that transport blood throughout the human body. These vessels transport blood cells, nutrients, and oxygen to the tissues of the body. They also take waste and carbon dioxide away f ...

radiologist Radiology ( ) is the medical discipline that uses medical imaging to diagnose diseases and guide their treatment, within the bodies of humans and other animals. It began with radiography (which is why its name has a root referring to radiati ...

who is credited with developing

interventional radiology Interventional radiology (IR) is a medical specialty that performs various minimally-invasive procedures using medical imaging guidance, such as x-ray fluoroscopy, computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, or ultrasound. IR performs b ...

. Dotter, with his trainee Dr Melvin P. Judkins, described

angioplasty Angioplasty, is also known as balloon angioplasty and percutaneous transluminal angioplasty (PTA), is a minimally invasive endovascular procedure used to widen narrowed or obstructed arteries or veins, typically to treat arterial atheroscle ...

in 1964. Dotter received a bachelor of arts degree in 1941 from Duke University. He went to medical school at Cornell, where he met his future wife, Pamela Beattie, a head nurse at New York Hospital. They married in 1944. He completed his internship at the United States Naval Hospital in New York State, and his residency at New York Hospital. Dotter invented angioplasty and the catheter-delivered stent, which were first used to treat peripheral arterial disease. It was Dotter who, in 1950, developed an automatic X-Ray Roll-Film magazine capable of producing images at the rate of 2 per second. On January 16, 1964, at

Oregon Health and Science University Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...

Dotter percutaneously dilated a tight, localized stenosis of the superficial femoral artery (SFA) in an 82-year-old woman with painful leg

ischemia Ischemia or ischaemia is a restriction in blood supply to any tissue, muscle group, or organ of the body, causing a shortage of oxygen that is needed for cellular metabolism (to keep tissue alive). Ischemia is generally caused by problems w ...

and

gangrene Gangrene is a type of tissue death caused by a lack of blood supply. Symptoms may include a change in skin color to red or black, numbness, swelling, pain, skin breakdown, and coolness. The feet and hands are most commonly affected. If the gan ...

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 Liver biopsy is the biopsy (removal of a small sample of tissue) from the liver. It is a medical test that is done to aid diagnosis of liver disease, to assess the severity of known liver disease, and to monitor the progress of treatment. Medica ...

through the

jugular vein The jugular veins are veins that take deoxygenated blood from the head back to the heart via the superior vena cava. The internal jugular vein descends next to the internal carotid artery and continues posteriorly to the sternocleidomastoid mu ...

, initially in animal models and in 1973 in humans. Charles Dotter is commonly known as the "Father of Interventional Radiology." He served as the chairman of the School of Medicine Department of Diagnostic Radiology at Oregon Health Sciences University for 33 years, from 1952 until his death in 1985. The University now boasts the Dotter Interventional Institute in his honor.

References

External links

Biography of Charles Dotter

Dotter Interventional Institute

Misty M. Payne: 'Charles Theodore Dotter: The Father of Intervention’. In: ''Texas Heart Institute Journal'', 2001, 28(1): p.28–38
American radiologists 1920 births 1985 deaths 20th-century American physicians Duke University alumni Cornell University alumni {{US-physician-stub

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