Contact: Will Sansom
Phone: (210) 567-2579
E-mail: sansom@uthscsa.edu

Dr. Julio Palmaz gained a U.S. patent on the stent (pictured) in April 1988. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted approval for use in cardiac arteries in 1994.
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Thirty years ago, Andreas Gruentzig, M.D., performed the world’s first angioplasty, ushering in a new era of minimally invasive coronary intervention accomplished by catheters, balloons and tubes.

Many took note of that historic procedure in Zurich, Switzerland, including radiologist Julio C. Palmaz, M.D., who in the 1980s as a professor at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, would invent the Palmaz Stent, which has been called one of the 10 medical patents that changed the world.

Today, 2 million stents are inserted annually to treat patients, and Dr. Palmaz's achievement has brought international recognition to the Health Science Center Department of Radiology.

“Thirty years ago, this started a brand-new way of treating patients,” said Steven R. Bailey, M.D., F.A.C.C., F.S.C.A.I., the Janey Briscoe Distinguished Chair in Cardiovascular Research at the UT Health Science Center. “At that time, one in four people who suffered heart attacks died.”

If medicines failed to alleviate symptoms, the only treatment was to undergo surgical bypass, he said.

Survival rates have been improved due to stents
Today, fewer than one in 20 people die from heart attacks, and hospital stays have been reduced from six weeks to three or four days. These patients return to full and active lives more quickly.

“The success of the last 30 years is enabling the future technologies of stents that will be absorbed into the body, and even new heart valves that do not require surgical opening of the chest,” Dr. Bailey said.

Stents are placed in the vein through the skin in the groin.

“We are doing these things here at the Health Science Center,” Dr. Bailey said. “The university continues to be a leader in the field of percutaneous (through the skin) treatments, with cardiothoracic surgeons, vascular surgeons, cardiologists and others working as a team.”

Much of this work is going on in the Janey Briscoe Center for Cardiovascular Research, of which Dr. Bailey is the director. He is also professor of medicine and radiology and interim chief of cardiology at the Health Science Center.

“Although heart disease continues to be the No. 1 killer in the United States, the success and progress of angioplasty is one of modern medicine’s most inspiring stories,” Dr. Bailey said in a 30th anniversary press release issued by The Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions.

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The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio is the leading research institution in South Texas and one of the major health sciences universities in the world. With an operating budget of $576 million, the Health Science Center is the chief catalyst for the $15.3 billion biosciences and health care sector in San Antonio’s economy. The Health Science Center has had an estimated $35 billion impact on the region since inception and has expanded to six campuses in San Antonio, Laredo, Harlingen and Edinburg. More than 22,000 graduates (physicians, dentists, nurses, scientists and allied health professionals) serve in their fields, including many in Texas. Health Science Center faculty are international leaders in cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, aging, stroke prevention, kidney disease, orthopaedics, research imaging, transplant surgery, psychiatry and clinical neurosciences, pain management, genetics, nursing, allied health, dentistry and many other fields.