Key result
A 38-year-old man with a high-grade proximal LAD stenosis underwent the first coronary angioplasty in 1977 as an alternative to bypass surgery, with a 23-year follow-up reported.
Case Report (n=1)
Documents the 23-year follow-up of the first patient to undergo coronary angioplasty.
Supports potential durability of early angioplasty; leaves open generalizability to contemporary patients and techniques.
To the Editor: Coronary angiography performed in a 38-year-old man on September 14, 1977, showed a high-grade but discrete stenosis of the proximal left anterior descending coronary artery just before the first large diagonal branch (Figure 1A).1 The remainder of the coronary arteries and the left ventricle were normal. I told the patient that Dr. Andreas Gruentzig would offer him an alternative to bypass surgery. The alternative was coronary angioplasty. Gruentzig candidly explained the results that had been obtained in a few hundred patients treated with a balloon for peripheral-artery stenoses and mentioned the possibility of an immediate coronary bypass . . .
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Bernhard Meier (2001) conducted a case report in Coronary artery stenosis (n=1). Coronary angioplasty was evaluated. A 38-year-old man with a high-grade proximal LAD stenosis underwent the first coronary angioplasty in 1977 as an alternative to bypass surgery, with a 23-year follow-up reported.
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