At Bartow Regional Medical Center, many procedures that once required surgery are being performed by interventional radiologists (IRs). IRs deliver treatment to different parts of the body through the body's own "highway system" - the veins and arteries.
Guided by advanced imaging techniques, these interventions require only tiny incisions and offer important advantages to patients. IRs are in the forefrontof a revolution in medicine that Larry Dietrich, M.D., Director of Interventional Radiology at Bartow Regional Medical Center, sums up as "doing things in a non-surgical manner to lessen risks, shorten recovery times and improve outcomes."
Today procedures pioneered by interventional radiology are used in cardiac catheterization labs to treat heart problems without surgery. "At the same time," says Dr. Dietrich, "interventional radiology has evolved by applying these techniques to other parts of the body."
This means that, with techniques like those used in our cath lab to treat diseases of the heart (see article on this page), Bartow Regional's IRs can diagnose and eliminate blockages in the vessels supplying blood to other vital organs.
Interventional radiology thereby makes possible non-surgical prevention and treatment of kidney failure, hypertension, strokes and peripheral vascular disease - blockages in the arteries of the legs and feet that can be the prelude to serious cardiovascular problems.
People with PVD may experience severe leg pain after walking even short distances, a condition our IRs treat using new technologies called "polar angioplasty" and atherectomy to restore blood flow in the legs.
Interventional radiology can also deliver anticoagulants and clot-busting medications to the legs, lungs and other body parts. When those medications can't be used, the IR can insert a filter in a blood vessel to keep blood clots from passing into the lungs and causing a otentially fatal pulmonary embolism.
"We sometimes seal arteries too - for example, to stop the bleeding in trauma cases that are brought into the Emergency Room," says Dr. Dietrich. Interventional radiology has made biopsy of suspicious growths less invasive through a technique called needle aspiration, which removes tissue samples through small incisions without the need for surgery.
And recent advances in nuclear imaging enable our IRs to identify "hot" spots (potential malignancies) by means of a PET-scan (positron emission tomography). IRs work with other specialists at Bartow Regional to perform useful procedures that range from eliminating kidney stones to installing shunts for dialysis. (See article on this page.)
They also support the work of our fine surgeons. For example, an interventional radiology procedure can give a patient waiting for gall bladder surgery early relief from the pain caused by his condition. Some of the procedures described above can be performed on an outpatient basis. All are available at Bartow Regional Medical Center.
For information, please call our Physician Referral Service
at 863-534-DOCS (3627).