Transvenous pacing: a seminal transition from the research laboratory

In the late 1950s, nonsurgical catheter therapies for the treatment of various disorders did not exist, although surgery was at its highest level of development in the classic sense: extirpation of organs, incision and drainage, diagnostic biopsy. Today we live in an era of diagnostic and therapeutic methods based on catheters: observation, aspiration, drainage, stretching, and manipulation by means of relatively atraumatic tubes. The development of catheter techniques has spawned undreamed-of specialties, industries, and professional societies. Although catheters had been used before then in research laboratories, Furman's clinical application of electrode-tipped venous catheters in treating patients with complete heart block and Stokes-Adams seizures represents a turning point. This advance may be regarded as the catalytic and seminal event for the growth of catheter technologies, which are so prominent in the world of medicine today, and their application to many fields of medicine and surgery.