CHARLES THEODORE DOTTER

By: Mariam Al-Masri

Imagine how they used to practice medicine, perform surgeries, treat, and diagnose only based on the physical examination and the Doctor’s assumptions. Yes, this was the case until Charles dotter (1920 – 1985) pioneered the use of interventional radiology in the 20th century, which was a revolutionary development in invasive procedures and surgical techniques.

In his early years, Dotter was highly interested in mechanical tools, and in finding other uses for them. This interest didn’t diminish after he went to Cornell medical college in New York City, he then developed his interest in Angiocardiography while he was a resident at New York Hospital. He developed an automatic X-Ray Roll-Film magazine which gives images at 2 per second rate, this fact reveals his exceptional way of thinking.

His most important contribution was on January 16th 1964, the day in which interventional radiology gave real tangible results. It was a case of Laura Shaw; an 82 year old woman who came with a femoral arterial stenosis, gangrenous ulcers in the toes, and with risk of amputation. Dotter then suggested that instead of just imaging the blockages and performing an open surgery to remove them, why won’t they just reopen these blockages during the imaging procedure with the catheter? And this idea led to what’s called percutaneous transluminal angioplasty (PTA). After this minimally invasive procedure, the patient’s symptoms improved and the ulcers were healed completely.

It should be noted that the surgeons’ attitudes towards what he did weren’t that good, some surgeon wrote him a note that says: “VISUALIZE BUT DO NOT TRY TO FIX”, but dotter dealt with this wisely till his ideas were accepted after a couple of years.

Dotter also published hundreds of papers and made 20 scientific exhibits, which with his greatest contribution, had a better effect on the clinical care and how they replaced harmful procedures to the patients.

Charles dotter is known as the “Father of Interventional Radiology” for his pioneering work. He received the gold medal several times and was nominated for the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1978. And the dotter interventional institute was made in his honor. Medicine has now become beneficially stronger thanks to such ideas, and lots of procedures nowadays depend totally on radiology. Although it became nearly rare among physicians to step up and dare to change things to the best, but we hope the world can earn more of these contributions in medical innovation.

References: ___________________

(Payne 2001, Friedman 2015, Deora 2016) Deora, S. (2016). “The story of ‘STENT’: From noun to verb.” Indian Heart J 68(2): 235-237.

Friedman, S. G. (2015). “Charles Dotter and the fiftieth anniversary of endovascular surgery.” J Vasc Surg 61(2): 556-558.

Payne, M. M. (2001). “Charles Theodore Dotter. The father of intervention.” Tex Heart Inst J 28(1): 28- 38.