I was taught that dottern is the same as balloon dilation

dottern = to dilate

What is a Coronary Artery stent? A coronary stent is stainless tube with slots. It is mounted on a balloon catheter in a "crimped" or collapsed state. When the balloon of is inflated, the stent expands or opens up and pushes itself against the inner wall of the coronary artery. This holds the artery open when the balloon is deflated and removed. Coronary artery stents were designed to overcome some of the short comings of angioplasty. Angioplasty is a technique that is used to dilate an area of arterial blockage with the help of a catheter with an inflatable, small, sausage-shaped balloon at its tip. Although introduced over two decades ago, angioplasty continues to be the most frequently employed procedure in the cardiac cath lab (either by its self, or in conjuction with other procedures such as coronary stenting).
http://www.heartsite.com/html/stent.html

Use of Intravascular Stents in Systemic Venous and Systemic Venous ...
002) with stent implantation (Fig 3). The range of balloon sizes used for stent dilation was 15 to 20 mm (mean, 18±2.9 mm). Residual waists at maximal ...
http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/full/91/12/2948

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Note added at 26 mins (2007-01-11 20:05:55 GMT)
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I did find the origin of the word "dottern":

Die Idee, Einengungen von Gefäßen mechanisch "von innen" aufzudehnen, wurde pionierhaft zunächst von Charles Dotter (daher: "Dottern") mit anfänglich eher stabähnlichen Geräten entwickelt.
http://www.angioclinic.de/therapie/pta.html