The Persistent Failure of Catheterization Laboratory Safety: Time for Enhanced Radiation Protection Devices

Nearly half a century has passed since Andreas Grüntzig’s landmark coronary intervention—the world’s inaugural balloon angioplasty procedure. That single event launched an entire specialty of medicine and revolutionized how we treat patients with heart disease, yet the safety of the physicians and nurses in our cardiac catheterization laboratories has barely budged beyond his era’s primitive standards.