The history of cardiac catheterization

The evolution of cardiac catheterization has occurred over at least four centuries. One of the first major steps was the description of the circulation of the blood by William Harvey in 1628. The next milestone was the measurement of arterial pressure by Stephen Hales, one century later. However, the 19th century represented the golden age of cardiovascular physiology, highlighted by the achievements of Carl Ludwig, Etienne-Jules Marey and Claude Bernard, among others. Human cardiac catheterization developed during the 20th century. The first right heart catheterization in a human was performed by Werner Forssmann on himself in 1929. Diagnostic cardiac catheterization was introduced by André Cournand and Dickinson Richards in the early 1940s, and selective coronary angiography was described by Mason Sones in the early 1960s. More recently, with the advent of catheter-based interventions, pioneered by Andreas Gruentzig in the late 1970s, there has been considerable progress in the refinement and expansion of these techniques. Currently, the Sones technique is used only infrequently, and coronary angiography and percutaneous coronary intervention rely mainly on percutaneous femoral and percutaneous radial artery approaches. On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Montreal Heart Institute, it seems appropriate to highlight the contribution of this institution in these two areas.