The Cardiovascular and Interventional Radiological Society of Europe (CIRSE) has composed a tribute in memory of one of its founders, Dr. Friedrich Olbert, who died on 6 April.
Considered one of the pioneers of interventional radiology, Olbert developed a balloon catheter in the late 1970s that held higher pressures and maintained a lower profile than the Grüntzig catheter. He also helped organize the merging of the European Society of Cardiovascular and Interventional Radiology and the European College of Angiography at a joint meeting in 1985, where he served as president of the first congress for the newly formed society.
Olbert received his medical degree from the University of Vienna in 1950. He subsequently trained to be a radiologist at the Hospital Lainz in Vienna, where he became senior consultant in the radiology section of the department of surgery.
