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P Heintzen

Publications and source records attributed to P Heintzen.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2002

History of German pediatric cardiology.

Due to the isolation of German medicine in World War II accompanied by the destruction of many hospitals, German pediatricians did not show any serious interest in the treatment of children with congenital heart diseases, nor did they take notice of the progress achieved by Helen Taussig, Alfred Blalock and other cardiologists and surgeons in the western world. This problem was even worse in East Germany. Only a few German internists and forward-looking surgeons were able and ready to take care of this group of principally operable children in places like Bonn/Düsseldorf, Marburg/Munich, Berlin, and Hamburg. However, in the early 1950s some directors of pediatrics at university hospitals--largely motivated by the cardiac surgeons--allowed or even encouraged younger colleagues to concentrate on pediatric cardiology and to begin application of heart catheterization and angiocardiography. In 1960 a group of colleagues interested in pediatric cardiology met for the first time in Frankfurt and became the nucleus of the future "working group" (1969) and finally the "German Society of Pediatric Cardiology" (1974). By 1972 pediatric cardiology had been approved as an independent (sub)specialty. Colleagues and friends from surrounding countries (Austria, Great Britain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the Netherlands) and also from the US and some eastern countries were either members or regular guests during or between the meetings. Pediatric cardiology is now represented in Germany by specialized practitioners, trainees and assistants who work in both community and university hospitals, and in specialized departments. Due to the foresightedness of the Chief of Pediatrics, Prof. G. Joppich, the first Chair of Pediatric Cardiology was founded in Göttingen in 1960 under the direction of A. Beuren. Another model of interdisciplinary cooperation between pediatric cardiologists, bioengineers, mathematicians and computer scientists was established in Kiel in 1966. In other places pediatric and adult cardiologists were brought together in "Heart Centers" with cardiovascular surgeons. The first of these Heart Centers was founded in 1974 in Munich under the directorship of K. Bühlmeyer and comparable centers were later established in Bad Oeynhausen (1985) and Berlin (1986). Following reunification in 1990, pediatric cardiologists from the east and west came together. Thus, within the last three to four decades German pediatric cardiology gradually caught up with international standards and in some fields of cardiovascular research even assumed a leading role. The care of the growing numbers of surviving patients with congenital heart disease has become a new challenge that has to be met by experienced cardiologists. To maintain the level of competence, future activities should however, not only concentrate on the optimal care of patients with congenital heart disease but also be responsible for cardiovascular research.

Cardiology↗
PubMed2002

History of cardiovascular imaging procedures (as developed and/or applied in German cardiology).

The value of the four main imaging tools: radiology, magnetic resonance imaging, echocardiography and nuclear cardiology depends in the first place on physical properties which determine the spatial, temporal and density resolution and second on the conditions under which the relevant information can be obtained with respect to the diagnostic or therapeutic problem, the comfort of the investigation, the degree of invasivity and the expenses. For several decades radiology was the only available method that allowed a look into the body. Thereby, all relevant information about diseases amenable to any surgical or conservative therapy could be attained. Parallel to the progress of cardiovascular surgery, angiocardiography could provide the anatomic and functional characteristics of congenital and acquired heart diseases. The basic principles for the measurement of total heart size, volume and shape were established already before contrast injection--initially by hand--showed the internal architecture of the heart cavities and the circulatory system. With the invention of film changers, the fundamental knowledge about all kinds of malformations of the heart and vessels was gained. Further technical progress made the procedures faster by cineangiocardiography, more comfortable by simultaneous biplane operation and easier to handle by videotechniques, allowing electronic data processing, storage and retrieval in bright operating theaters. Computer technology favored flexible image processing which, like digital subtraction and functional angiocardiography, could reduce the amount of contrast material to be injected and thereby improve the compatibility, due to better nonionic contrast material and shorter study times. Finally, computer tomography with cross sectional, or spiral data collection enabled a dynamic three-dimensional reconstruction and visualization of the beating heart and to display selected information in 'measures and numbers'. Inspite all these successes, the 'stain' of invasivity remains. Strong competition arose first in echocardiography, which--after some pioneering activities in Germany in the late 1950s--flourished in the 1970s, after being reimported from the US. Most of the rapidly increasing number of ultrasound technologies--from M-mode, via various 2D linear and sector scanning procedures in combination with continuous, pulsed and/or color Doppler methods, new contrast-echo modalities and finally 3D volume scanning procedures--can be applied without any harm in all age groups and from each competent practitioner with comparably small and cheap equipment. Only oesophageal and intravascular approaches retain a touch of invasivity. Consequently not much room remains for other techniques except those, like MRI, which can differentiate tissue properties better and with higher resolution and give unlimited access to all intrathoracic organs noninvasively. Under these conditions the indications for nuclear cardiology are restricted to the small field of myocardial perfusion and metabolic studies, whereas transit time measurements and radionuclide ventriculography are practically obsolete.

Cardiology↗