[Seldinger - the method. Recollections and reflections]

The author relates the commercial/technical events preceding and following the conception of "The Seldinger Technique" in 1951 by Dr Sven-Ivan Seldinger, Stockholm. The "PE-tubing", developed in 1950 by Clay-Adams Inc., New York, N.Y. was then presented to the Swedish medical profession by AB Stille-Werner (Stille) in Stockholm. PE-tubing with its suitable properties for arterial catheterization was at the time the only industrially produced tubing with degrees of tolerances to render possible the development of the Seldinger "guide wires". Technical development was undertaken by Mr Elof Törnros, chief engineer of the Stille Experimental Workshop, in accordance with the special wishes of Seldinger. The guide wires were produced in two sizes to be used with PE-tubing PE-160 and PE-205 of the Clay-Adams catalogue. Seldinger, radiologist in the X-Ray department of the Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm, conceived "The Seldinger Technique", which historically proven resulted in vast numbers of "spin-off" catheters. Not only for angiography and intervention radiology but also for a great number of other vascular catheterization procedures as well as for intravenous infusions by the use of "over-the-needle" "soft" infusion needles.