What is Interventional Radiology and Embolisation?
Interventional Radiology (Minimally Invasive Image Guided Surgery) is a very modern medical speciality. Consultants in Interventional Radiology use many of the different imaging and scanning facilities available (eg Ultrasound, Fluoroscopy, CT, Angiography) to offer a range of minimally invasive procedures for patients.
Increasingly, Interventional Radiology can offer an alternative to conventional open surgery. Most Interventional Radiology procedures are done under local anaesthetic (giving quicker recovery times than after general anaesthesia). Very often, Interventional Radiology procedures can be done as day case procedures or alternatively only need a relatively short hospital stay. This means the impact on the body is usually reduced compared with traditional surgery and patients can usually return to normal activities more quickly (including return to work).
This is often convenient and preferred by many patients. Since most procedures start with passing a needle through the skin to the target it is sometimes called pinhole surgery.
Interventional Radiology is a relatively new specialist area in Medicine which has developed alongside the significant advances in imaging technology made in the 1970s and 1980s. Techniques, technology, approaches and research have all exploded subsequently so that now, many traditional surgical techniques have an equivalent minimally invasive treatment as an option for patients. This can offer advantages for patients and doctors alike.
There is hardly any area of medicine where Interventional Radiology has not had some impact on patient treatment. For example, patients can have angioplasty and stenting of narrowed arteries rather than surgical bypass, certain tumours can be treated with embolisation (blocking the blood supply) rather than being surgically removed, dilated (aueurysmal) arteries can be treated with stent-grafts rather than open surgery, some patients suffering a stroke can have the clot removed from the brain using catheter based techniques, symptomatic patients can have their prostate shrunk with non-surgcical techniques and uterine fibroids can be embolised rather than removed at hysterectomy. The indications are myriad and ever increasing with the benefit of up to date research evidence.
Numerous well known Interventional Radiologists are recognised as exceptional innovators; the speciality is at the cutting edge considering new technologies to treat disease conditions which traditionally may require major surgical procedures which themselves have significant complication rates or recovery period.
The essential skills of an Interventional Radiologist are in diagnostic image interpretation and the manipulation of fine catheter tubes and wires to navigate around the body under imaging control.
Interventional Radiologists are doctors who are trained in Radiology and Interventional Therapy; no other medical specialty possesses this unique combination of skills.
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