Andreas Roland Grüntzig

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Andreas Roland Grüntzig (born June 25, 1939 in Dresden ; † October 27, 1985 in Forsyth , Georgia , United States ) was a German angiologist and cardiologist whose work had a decisive influence on interventional cardiology .

Andreas Grüntzig was born on June 25, 1939 in Dresden. From 1950 to 1952 the family, whose father was killed in the war in 1945, temporarily emigrated to Argentina. As a Thomaner , Grüntzig passed the Abitur at the Thomasschule in Leipzig in order to study medicine in Heidelberg after fleeing to West Germany. His other clinical teachers included Ratschow in Darmstadt and from 1971 to 1980 Hegglin, Bollinger, Walter Siegenthaler , Wellauer, Rutishauser and Krayenbühl in Zurich. When Eberhard Zeitler in Engelskirchen he learned in 1971 the reopening of occluded arteries by Dotterung , one of Charles Dotter developedKnowing the bougienage process .

After the invention of the balloon catheter for peripheral arteries in 1974, he carried out a successful balloon dilatation for the first time on September 16, 1977 to expand constricted coronary arteries in Zurich, the so-called percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty ( PTCA ) or percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). During a cardiac catheter examination , he expanded an 80% narrowed section of the anterior wall branch ( LAD ) of the heart ( LAD ) , which was only about three millimeters short, with a balloon inserted into the vessel, restored normal blood flow and thus spared the patient a bypass operation . After ten years, check-ups showed the enlarged constriction to be open. His first four cases presented at a congress of the American Heart Society ( AHA ) immediately attracted attention and skepticism, today his achievements as a pioneer in interventional cardiology are recognized worldwide.

Today, coronary angioplasty for the treatment of constrictions in the coronary arteries has become established worldwide and is constantly being further developed, for example with coronary stents and drug-eluting stents .

Andreas Grüntzig worked as clinical director in Atlanta ( Georgia ). He and his second wife died when their Beechcraft Baron crashed in Forsyth , Georgia on October 27, 1985. Ophthalmologist Johannes Grüntzig is his brother.

The German Society for Cardiology awards the Andreas Grüntzig Research Prize, endowed with 5,000 euros (as of 2013), for "clinically active physicians [...] whose scientific work deals with questions of interventional coronary therapy".

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  1. ↑ A. Grüntzig: For the percutaneous treatment of atherosclerotic stenoses with the dilatation catheter. In: G. Blümchen (Ed.): Contributions to the history of cardiology. Roderbirken 1979, pp. 243-253.
  2. ↑ AR Gruntzig, A. Senning, WE Siegenthaler: Nonoperative dilatation of coronary artery stenosis-: percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty. In: N Engl J Med. 301 (2), Jul 12, 1979, pp. 61-68.

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personal data
SURNAME Grüntzig, Andreas Roland
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Grüntzig, Andreas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German radiologist and cardiologist
DATE OF BIRTH June 25, 1939
PLACE OF BIRTH Dresden
DATE OF DEATH October 27, 1985
Place of death Forsyth , Georgia , United States