First performed by Dr. William Rashkind in 1966, balloon atrial septostomy was the first catheter-based procedure to prove useful in the survival rate of infants with congenital heart disease. Rashkind was treating a newborn infant diagnosed with transposition of the great arteries (TGA). Much of the blood circulating through the patient’s body was oxygen-poor, resulting in a bluish tint (cyanosis) to the skin, lips, fingernails and other areas of the body. This condition is often called blue baby.

Rashkind discovered that the baby also had a small atrial septal defect (ASD) through which life-sustaining, oxygen-rich blood was mixing with oxygen-poor blood and being circulated throughout the body. Rashkind correctly predicted that he could improve the patient’s condition by using a balloon-tipped catheter to widen the ASD and increase the volume of oxygen-rich blood being pumped into the body. He inserted the catheter through a blood vessel in the baby’s body and guided it all the way to the ASD. Once the catheter was in place, he inflated the balloon at the tip of the catheter to widen the ASD and then withdrew the balloon. The procedure successfully stabilized the patient until surgery could be performed to repair the TGA. Since that initial procedure, thousands have been performed around the world.