ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Down to the Guidewire: Making a Place for Biomaterials in Mid-Twentieth Century Medicine

• In Event: Second Nature: Synthetic Materials and the (Re)making of Biological Knowledge in the Twentieth Century

English Abstract

A key tool in cardiothoracic care is the coronary guidewire. These thin and flexible metallic wires are radiopaque objects engineered to maneuver through vascular systems to help precisely deliver medical devices such as stents. The use and sale of guidewires have been growing ever since the late 1960s when stainless steel, nitinol, and PTFE (Teflon) were developed for minimally invasive medical procedures, compounded by the proliferation of chronic cardiovascular diseases associated with sedentary lifestyles and poor nutrition. While much attention has been given to the refinement of catheter-delivered stents following the work of radiologist Charles Dotter, less historical attention has been given to the materials themselves that have been crucial for enabling such life-saving interventions. An inquiry into the object of the guidewire illustrates the range of materials that medical researchers worked with during and after the 1960s and 1970s. It can also help us trace historical discourse about “biocompatibility” amid the formation of the heterogeneous field of “biomaterials.” The case of guidewire technologies featuring nitinol, a super-elastic alloy made of titanium and nickel developed originally for military purposes at the Naval Ordance Laboratory in 1959, facilitates a broader discussion about the distinctions between conventional organic and inorganic materials that became obscured by the biomaterials category, and, how the term creates complications for understanding medical waste in history.

Author

• Lisa Onaga, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science