Tomorrow’s Tech Treepowered by Astra

Surgery & Medical Devices · Recorded milestone

Balloon angioplasty

Recorded year1977

Andreas Gruntzig opens a blocked heart artery with a tiny balloon on a catheter, with no open surgery.

Explore this milestone on the interactive map

Built on

Led to

Sources & evidence

Dataset updated 2026-10-18. This individual record has not been separately re-reviewed.