Radiopaque contrast media for vascular imaging made its debut over 100 years ago. One month after Röntgen's discovery of X-ray, Haschek and Lindenthal [1] published an arteriogram of an amputated hand injected with a radiopaque medium composed of bismuth, lead, and barium salts. The first iodinated intravascular agent used in a living human was a 50% solution of sodium iodide for lower extremity angiography and reported by Brooks [2] in 1924. The toxicity and pain associated with intraarterial injection stimulated evaluation of other radiopaque agents. American urologist Moses Swick, who while a fellow in Berlin during the late 1920s investigated iodinated and arsenated derivatives of pyridine as antibiotics, developed the first iodinated organic radiopaque contrast medium [3,4]. He noted that the sodium salt of N-methyl-5-iodo-2-pyridone, a monoiodinated agent, was surprisingly nontoxic and excreted by the kidneys, allowing for the first time successful imaging of the urinary tract [5]. Thus began our iodinated assault on renal function. This contrast agent, the first of the iodinated pyridones, was marketed by Schering as Selectan and then Uroselectan, a modification [6]. They were quickly supplanted with a related di-iodinated agent Uroselectan B [3]. Multiple other variations of di-iodinated pyridones were also marketed, with Diodrast by