SAN ANTONIO (Nov. 9, 2010) — Julio C. Palmaz, M.D., of the UT Health Science Center San Antonio, will be honored as a landmark medical innovator at the Cardiovascular Research Foundation’s annual Pulse of the City Gala, set for Wednesday [Nov. 10] in New York.
The longtime radiologist, now an honorary Ashbel Smith Professor at the Health Science Center, invented the Palmaz Stent, a wire-mesh tube inserted into clogged arteries. The Palmaz Stent has brought relief to millions suffering from chest pain and heart attack. It was the world’s first vascular stent and changed the standard of care in cardiology and peripheral vascular medicine worldwide.
Stewart R. Reuter, M.D., J.D., who as chairman of radiology in the School of Medicine provided essential support in the 1980s and ’90s as Dr. Palmaz developed the stent, has said that its impact “on reducing the cost and morbidity of the treatment of coronary artery disease has truly been of Nobel Prize dimensions. Today, most coronary angioplasties are followed by stent placement. All of us have at least one friend who has had a stent.”
The Cardiovascular Research Foundation announced that it is honoring Dr. Palmaz and three other individuals “whose innovative spirit and creative talent have transformed interventional cardiovascular medicine. Their work has touched the lives of countless individuals suffering from heart disease, improving patient care around the world.”
In 2006 Dr. Palmaz was the inaugural recipient of the Julio Palmaz Award for Innovation in Healthcare and the Biosciences, which is bestowed annually by BioMed SA, a non-profit organization that works to speed the growth of San Antonio’s health care and bioscience sector.
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