Hans Blömer: A Pioneer of Cardiac Catheterization in Germany in the Postwar Period

Objectives: The urologist Werner Forssmann (Germany, 1929) and the pulmonologist André Cournand (New York, 1941) paved the way to perform cardiac catheterization in humans. Hans Blömer was one of the first doctors who was involved in the development and implementation of this method in Germany in the postwar period. Recently, an interview with Hans Blömer (aged 96 years) was performed to get personal information from a still living contemporary witness of this fascinating period.

Methods: This interview was performed with an audio–video recording near Munich in August 2018.

Results: Hans Blömer started to work as a volunteer at the end of his medical study period (1946–1950) in the laboratory of the cardiovascular system at the Department of Physiology in Munich. Here, he investigated the coronary artery perfusion in dogs with methods which were not suitable to get reliable results. At this time, first publication appeared reporting the possibility to measure oxygen saturation and pressure in the heart and in the pulmonary artery via cardiac catheter in humans. A center of excellence for this new approach in Europe was in Stockholm where cardiac catheterizations were performed mainly in children with congenital heart disease. Hans Blömer got a small grant to learn this new technology. He went by motorbike to Stockholm in 1953 working with famous cardiologists such as Edgar Mannheimer, Lars Wekö, and Gustav Nylin for almost 1 year. Here, he learned to probe the heart without angiography to measure oxygen saturation with the van Slyk method and to determine the pressure with the Statham system. He returned back to Munich to build up a cardiac catheterization laboratory at the Department of Medicine in Munich (LMU). There, in 1954, he performed the first cardiac catheterization. One of his first collaborators was Konrad Bühlmeyer, who primarily was in charge of the children with congenital heart diseases. Between 1954 and 1960, Hans Blömer completed his formation with research residencies at the Hammersmith Hospital in London and at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester Minnesota. He became the director of the Department of Medicine in Munich (TUM) in 1960. He retired as director in 1992 but was still working with patients until 2008.

Conclusion: This interview with Hans Blömer as a still living contemporary witness is a fascinating example telling us the first step of the development and implementation of cardiac catheterization in Germany.

No conflict of interest has been declared by the author(s).