Charles T Dotter
Charles T Dotter (1920-1985) is often considered the father of interventional radiology who in 1964 performed the very first peripheral angioplasty, and made many other major contributions in this field.
On this page:
Early life
Charles Theodore Dotter was born in Boston on 14 June 1920. He graduated with a BA from Duke University in 1941 and then studied medicine at Cornell Medical College in New York City. He married Pamela Battie, a nurse at New York Hospital in 1944.
Interventional radiology
On 16 January 1964, Dotter performed the world's first transluminal percutaneous angioplasty. Laura Shaw was an 82-year old woman who had repeatedly refused amputations for a gangrenous foot. Dotter diagnosed superficial femoral artery stenosis on angiography and used a dilator catheter he had been developing to dilate the vessel. There was rapid improvement of her leg pain and the gangrenous ulcer completely healed. Shaw lived for another three years after this groundbreaking procedure.
Later life
He was appointed Professor of Radiology, at the early age of 32 years, at Oregon University, USA. It is said that he is the youngest individual to ever be appointed a Chair of an academic radiology department in the United States 3.
He was a prolific researcher and published over 300 papers, over half as first author. Melvin Judkins, his co-author on his classic paper was his trainee and went on to become one of the twentieth century's great cardiac angiographers (and pioneer of the Judkin catheter).
Dotter was a polymath with an interest in music, painting, photography, flying and mountain climbing. In 1962 he was one of the earliest to write a paper on cardiac resuscitation.
He died from respiratory failure on 15 February 1985 4.
Accolades
- Gold medal from the American College of Radiology
- Gold medal from the Radiological Society of North America
- Gold medal from the Chicago Medical and Radiological Societies
- nominated for the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1978
Legacy
- vascular interventional radiology
- The Dotter Institute, recently renamed the Charles T. Dotter Department of Interventional Radiology, at OHSU (Oregon Health Sciences University).
Related Radiopaedia articles
History of radiology
- key milestones
- 1880: Pierre Curie discovered piezoelectricity
- 1895: Wilhelm Roentgen detects x-rays
- 1896: Antoine Henri Becquerel discovered radioactivity
- 1896: Sydney Rowland founds the first radiology journal, Archives of Clinical Skiagraphy
- 1896: Thomas Edison invents the first commercially-available fluoroscope
- 1896: John Macintyre opens the world's first radiology department in Glasgow
- 1898: Marie Curie publishes her paper 'Rays emitted by uranium and thorium compounds'
- 1913: Albert Salomon commences research leading to mammography
- 1913: William Coolidge introduces his eponymous x-ray tube
- 1927: Egas Moniz develops cerebral angiography
- 1934: Frederic and Irene Joliot-Curie artificially produce radioisotopes
- 1936: John Lawrence uses phosphorus-32 to treat leukemia
- 1939: Kitty Clark publishes Clark’s Positioning in Radiography
- 1950s: David Kuhl invents Positron Emission Tomography (PET)
- 1953: Sven-Ivar Seldinger develops his famous technique
- 1957: Ian Donald invents fetal ultrasound
- 1964: Charles Dotter introduces image-guided intervention
- 1965: Benjamin Felson publishes his Principles of Chest Roentgenology
- 1971: Godfrey Hounsfield introduces the CT scanner (co-developed with Allan Cormack)
- 1977: Ray Damadian builds the first commercial MRI scanner
- 1989: Spiral CT introduced
- 2005: Frank Gaillard creates Radiopaedia.org :)
- 2012: inaugural International Day of Radiology
-
key figures in the history of radiology
- Antoine Henri Becquerel
- Gustav Bucky
- Kathleen "Kitty" Clark
- John Wesley Coltman
- William D Coolidge
- Allan M Cormack
- Marie Curie
- Pierre Curie
- Ray V Damadian
- Ian Donald
- Charles T Dotter
- Thomas A Edison
- Charles Thurstan Holland
- Godfrey N Hounsfield
- Frederick Joliot
- Irene Joliot-Curie
- David E Kuhl
- Paul C Lauterbur
- Peter Mansfield
- Egas Moniz
- Bernard Ziedses des Plantes
- Wilhelm C Roentgen
- Sven-Ivar Seldinger
- Albert Soiland
- Florence Stoney
-
important figures in the history of radiology
- Manoel de Abreu
- James Ambrose
- Antoine Béclère
- Eugene W Caldwell
- Ben Felson
- Felix Fleischner
- Ronald Grainger
- Peter Kerley
- Alban Köhler
- John Macintyre
- Philip ES Palmer
- Maurice M Reeder
- Sydney D Rowland
- Albert Salomon
- Robert Steiner
- Juan M Taveras
- William L Thompson
- Ian Young
- Nobel Prize winners in radiology
- history of modalities
- plain radiography
- fluoroscopy
- nuclear medicine
- SPECT
- PET
- ultrasound
- CT
- MRI
- interventional radiology
- historical imaging techniques
- bronchography
- conventional tomography
- pneumoencephalography
- translumbar aortography
- history of radiology journals
- American Journal of Neuroradiology (AJNR)
- American Journal of Roentgenology (AJR)
- American X-Ray Journal
- Archives of Clinical Skiagraphy
- British Journal of Radiology (BJR)
- Clinical Radiology
- Emergency Radiology
- European Radiology
- Journal de Radiologie
- Journal of the American College of Radiology (JACR)
- Journal of Medical Imaging and Radiation Oncology (JMIRO)
- RadioGraphics
- Radiology
- Seminars in Roentgenology
- history of radiology meetings
- history of radiology organizations
- Australia
- United Kingdom
- United States
- international
- Asian Oceanian Society of Radiology (AOSR)
- Colegio Interamericano de Radiologia (CIR)
- European Society of Radiology (ESR)
- Fleischner Society
- International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM)
- International Society of Radiographers and Radiological Technologists (ISRRT)
- International Society of Radiology (ISR)
- RAD-AID
- pioneering radiology books
- Atlas of Normal Roentgen Variants That May Simulate Disease
- Reeder and Felson's Gamuts in Radiology
- Radiographic Atlas of Skeletal Development of the Hand and Wrist
- Roentgenology - The Borderlands of the Normal and Early Pathological in the Skiagram
- The Roentgen Rays in Medicine and Surgery as an Aid in Diagnosis and as a Therapeutic Agent
- Textbook of X-ray Diagnosis by British Authors