William Ganz • LITFL Medical Blog • Medical Eponym Library

Vilem (William) Ganz (1919 – 2009) was a Slovakian-born American cardiologist.

Co-invented the Swan-Ganz catheter with Jeremy Swan at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in 1970. Swan was his immediate boss at the time, he approached him after his idea of ‘sailing’ through the heart without causing arrhythmia by irritating the endocardium and float the catheter to the pulmonary artery. Ganz and Swan worked with the Edwards Laboratory to develop the Swan-Ganz catheter. Ganz’s work with Arnost Fronek at Charles University also recognised him as a pioneer of thermodilution technique to measure blood flow.

Ganz had two sons with his wife Magda. Dr. Peter Ganz (Cardiologist) and Dr. Tomas Ganz (Intensivist). Ganz grew up in extreme poverty, his father passed away from a stroke when he was only 5 months old. Ganz’s mother was not educated, but they were able to make ends meet by taking in lodgers at the time.

Biography

Born on 7th January 1919, Košice, Czechoslovakia
1937 – Began medical studies at Charles University, Prague. 1938 Munich agreement made Kosice part of Hungary and Vilem was made a foreigner in Prague and had to return to his hometown, renamed Kassa at the time. He was drafted into Hungarian forced-labor camp
1944 – Escaped Nazi persecution at Auschwitz by using false documents to travel to Budapest where he met his wife Magda
1947 – Graduated at the top of his class, completing his medical studies at Charles University, Prague. Here Vilem worked with Arnost Fronek to engineer vascular catheters and pioneered the thermodilution method for measuring blood flow⁵
1966 – Migrated to Los Angeles, United States of America. Worked with Jeremy Swan and Edwards Laboratory to develop the Swan – Ganz catheter
1970 – Jeremy Swan and William Ganz et al. publish report: Catheterization of the heart in man with use of a flow-directed balloon-tipped catheter.
Died 11th November, 2009

Key Medical Attributions:

Ganz worked with Arnost Fronek to engineer vascular catheters and pioneered the thermodilution method for measuring blood flow, Charles University, Prague
Ganz also founded studies of human coronary circulation through the development of the coronary sinus thermodilution method, Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre
He was also a leader in the advent of thrombolysis in the treatment of acute myocardial infarction, Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre

Medical Eponyms

Swan-Ganz catheter – pulmonary artery catheter (1970)

Pictured below is the “extruded polyvinyl-chloride catheter 1.7mm in outer diameter” with the balloon tipped catheter and “attached to a strain-gauge catheter.” The pulmonary artery was accessed via “antecubital-vein cutdown” during the inception

Catheterization of the heart in man with use of a flow-directed balloon-tipped catheter

Major Publications

Swan HJ, Ganz W, Forrester J, Marcus H, Diamond G, Chonette D. Catheterization of the heart in man with use of a flow-directed balloon-tipped catheter. N Engl J Med. 1970 Aug 27;283(9); 447-51.
Ganz V, Hlavova A, Fronek A, Linhart J, Prerovsky I. Measurement of blood flow in the femoral artery in man at rest and during exercise by local thermo-dilution. Circulation. 1964; 30; 86-9.
Chatterjee K. The Swan-Ganz catheters: past, present, and future. A viewpoint. Circulation. 2009; 119; 147-52.
Ganz W, Tamura K, Marcus HS, Donoso R, Yoshida S, Swan HJ. Measurement of coronary sinus blood flow by continuous thermo-dilution in man. Circulation. 1971; 44; 181-95.
Ganz W, Buchbinder N, Marcus H, Mondkar A, Maddahi J, Charuzi Y, et al. Intracoronary thrombolysis in evolving myocardial infarction. Am Heart J. 1981; 101; 4-13.

Controversies

He claimed that the “sail – boat” idea was apocryphal and that the use of the balloon was driven by both the need to float the catheter and, most important, to cover the sharp tip of the catheter to reduce the mechanical irritation to the endocardium that caused arrhythmia during passage.⁶