19 Facts About Cesare Gianturco

Cesare Gianturco was an Italian-American physician and one of the earliest contributors to the specialty of interventional radiology.

Cesare Gianturco was born in Naples, the youngest of eight children.

Cesare Gianturco's father was the Italian scholar and politician Emanuele Gianturco.

Cesare Gianturco attended college and medical school at the Royal University of Rome.

Cesare Gianturco studied radiology in Rome, then went to Berlin for a year of training in pathology.

However, shortly after Cesare Gianturco arrived in Minnesota, his brother died, so Cesare Gianturco decided to pursue a career in radiology.

Alvarez and Cesare Gianturco studied hunger contractions in the stomachs of cats using cineradiography.

Cesare Gianturco worked on some devices with radiologist John D Camp on imaging technology, including techniques that would allow for visualization of the optic canal and hypoglossal canal.

At the invitation of a friend, physician Vito Witting, Cesare Gianturco moved to Illinois to join the medical group at the Carle Clinic in Urbana.

Witting had been ill, and he died of acute leukemia on the day that Cesare Gianturco arrived in Urbana.

Cesare Gianturco soon became the chief of radiology at the Carle Clinic, a position he held for more than 30 years.

Unsatisfied by a brief period of retirement in 1967, Cesare Gianturco sought to return to work as a radiologist.

Cesare Gianturco introduced the Gianturco coil, a tiny piece of wool that could be deployed from a catheter into a blood vessel to stop bleeding, or to impede or block the blood supply to a tumor.

Cesare Gianturco invented a type of inferior vena cava filter known colloquially as a "bird's nest" filter.

Cesare Gianturco was honored with the Gold Medal of the Radiological Society of North America and the Gold Medal of the Italian Radiological Society.

Cesare Gianturco became known for creating simple and inexpensive solutions to difficult problems.

Cesare Gianturco showed the radiologist how the same purpose could be achieved with a piece of string, an IV pole and a test tube clamp.

When he was not practicing medicine, Cesare Gianturco enjoyed sailing and he held a private pilot's license.

Cesare Gianturco was survived by his wife of 60 years, Verna, as well as two children and two grandchildren.