Charles Theodore Dotter

Charles Theodore Dotter (1920–1985) was a pioneering US vascular radiologist who is credited with developing interventional radiology. Dotter, together with his trainee Dr Melvin P. Judkins, described angioplasty in 1964.

Dotter invented angioplasty and the catheter-delivered stent, which were first used to treat peripheral arterial disease. On January 16, 1964, at Oregon Health and Science University Dotter percutaneously dilated a tight, localized stenosis of the superficial femoral artery (SFA) in an 82-year-old woman with painful leg ischemia and gangrene who refused leg amputation. After successful dilation of the stenosis with a guide wire and coaxial Teflon catheters, the circulation returned to her leg. The dilated artery stayed open until her death from pneumonia two and a half years later. He also developed liver biopsy through the jugular vein, initially in animal models and in 1973 in humans.