January 16 – On This Day in Medical History

Medical milestones, landmark publications, and notable births and deaths associated with January 16.

Events

1964 – Charles T. Dotter (1920-1985) and trainee Melvin Judkins performed the first intentional percutaneous transluminal angioplasty, using a wire guide and coaxial catheters to dilate a focal femoral lesion in Laura Shaw, aged 82, who had refused amputation; the limb reperfused immediately and the ulcer healed. This clinical “intraluminal operation” later gained wide surgical acceptance under the label “endoluminal surgery.”

The angiographic catheter can be more than a tool for passive means of diagnostic observation; used with imagination, it can become an important surgical instrument

2015 – National without a scalpel day founded by the Interventional Initiative. Observed annually on January 16th to celebrate the anniversary of the first angioplasty performed by Charles Dotter.

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Births

1815 – Léon Athanase Gosselin (1815-1887), French surgeon; described the Gosselin Fracture (1855)

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Deaths

1897– Paul Louis Duroziez (1826-1897), French general practitioner; described Duroziez Sign (1861)

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Further reading

• Dotter CT, Judkins MP. Transluminal treatment of arteriosclerotic obstruction. Description of a new technic and a preliminary report of its application. Circulation 1964; 30: 654-70
• Payne MM. Charles Theodore Dotter. The father of intervention. Tex Heart Inst J. 2001;28(1):28-38. 
• The first angioplasty – in 1964 – turned out to be a medical milestone. Cook Medical

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