Interventional Radiology

Interventional Radiology (IR) is a medical subspecialty which is used to diagnose and treat various diseases of all body parts through minimally invasive procedures that are performed by imaging experts by doing ultrasound, X-ray, MRI( Magnetic Resonance Imaging) , CT(Computed Tomography) scan etc.

Though Interventional Radiology (IR) is gaining momentum, most of the cancer-related or general diseases are still treated by using different combinations of medical and surgical treatment. Interventional radiology can perform both diagnostic and therapeutic procedures through a very minor cut or body orifices.

How long is the procedure?

A majority of interventional radiology (IR) procedures are conducted on an outpatient patient basis or require daycare or a short duration of admission in the hospital. These treatments are considered to be harmless and cost efficient as compared to conventional surgical treatment. A person undergoing this treatment may have faster recovery and can resume his or her day-to-day routine lifestyle within a few days after the treatment.

What are the procedures performed through Intervention Radiology (IR)?

Image Guided Fine Needle Aspiration Cytology (FNAC) and Biopsy: This procedure is a type of biopsy procedure which uses a thin needle inserted in an area of atypical appearing tissue or body fluid to diagnose cancer and infection that require definitive treatment. Biopsy done on the areas may include breast, lung, muscle, liver, kidney prostate etc. It is also used for aspiration and drainage of cysts for cell diagnosis and microbial culture.

Primary treatment:
Catheters are placed into the body to drain pus or fluids that are difficult to reach, for example liver abscesses, pancreatic abscesses, prostatic abscesses etc. The drainage of obstructed bile ducts like in gallbladder cancer and CBD obstruction is also performed through these catheters.

Post treatment care:
YASHODA HOSPITALS AND RESEARCH CENTRE, NEHRU NAGAR, GHAZIABAD has a specialized interventional radiology team who are known to offer palliative care and treatment by managing the following:

• Pain is managed by blocking the nerves to provide relief in abdominal tumors and chronic pancreatitis.
• Nasogastric and Nasojejunal feeding tubes are placed in the patient with difficult tube placement, for example during esophageal narrowing from tumors or chemical ingestion, etc.

What happens during Interventional Radiology (IR)?

In the first step your interventional radiologist will use various imaging techniques like ultrasound, X-ray, MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging), CT (Computed tomography) scan etc. to get a view of the part of the body that needs treatment. After this process interventional radiologist will make a small incision or cut to insert a tube, wire or a catheter in the body to reach the area that needs treatment.

The kind of imaging done and tool used will completely depend on the condition of the patient. This procedure might be performed by giving local anesthesia to the patient to ease pain.

Benefits of Interventional Radiology (IR):

The main benefit of having treatment through interventional radiology is that your doctor can easily get access to the part of the body that needs treatment. This treatment also reduces the chances of getting side effects from the treatment or surgery. It is mostly used in cancer treatment as the radioactive particle can be directly placed on the tumors and not on the healthy tissues. This method protects the healthy tissues from getting damaged through the strong treatments. It is often seen that recovery time from an IR procedure is much faster than traditional surgery methods.

Conclusion:

Interventional radiology is not only limited for cancer treatment but it can also be used for problems with blood vessels such as narrowed arteries or blood clots. Interventional radiology can also be used to treat kidney and gall bladder stones and can also be used to place central lines IVs that go deep into the body to transport medicines.

Some of the best interventional radiologists in Delhi NCR:

Dr. Pankaj Agarwal is one of the best radiologists in Delhi NCR with an experience of 10 years in the field of radiology. He specializes in MRI (head and neck), neuro imaging, musculoskeletal imaging, MRA (abdomen), MDCT (whole body head and neck including angiography), non-vascular interventional radiology and elastography etc.

Dr. Alok Tripathi is the Consultant in Radiology Department at Yashoda hospital. He has experience in all imaging modalities with good exposure to cross sectional imaging including CT and MRI.