Interventional Radiology in Cancer treatment

Worldwide, cancer has the second highest mortality rate of all the disease. It consists of a large group of diseases involving the abnormal growth of cells rapidly. Today, there are many types of cancer treatments available depending upon the type of cancer and its advancement. Some patients receive only one type of treatment but mostly, the patients receive a combination of the treatments.

The three major treatments and therapies of cancer include:

• Surgical treatment: In this procedure, surgeons remove cancer from the body through the operation using anesthesia. The procedure is complicated and painful.  

• Chemotherapy: It involves drugs to kill or retards the growth of the cancer cells in the body.

•  Radiation therapy: It uses high radiation energy to kill cancer cells and shrink the tumors in the body. Among all the treatments, the radiation therapy has a minimal invasion in the body but the main disadvantage is that there is a limit to the amount or lifetime dose of radiation body can safely receive. Also, radiation may kill the nearby healthy cells.

Interventional radiology is a medical specialty in which the highly trained physicians and radiologists perform minimally invasive procedures for the diagnosis and treatment of the various diseases. In the cancer treatment, it has reduced the risk, complications, pain and recovery time for the patients by replacing surgery and chemotherapy. Due to these, it is increasingly occupying the major role in the care of patients.

The specialty includes imaging techniques such as X-rays, Ultrasound, MRI, CT-scan and various other instruments to diagnose and treat the patients non-surgically using the catheter placed inside the body.

Diagnosis of Cancer

The appropriate treatment requires definite timely diagnosis and the accurate staging of cancer. With the IR technology, it is now possible to perform biopsies for histologic confirmations of the tumors with less or minimal invasion to the surrounding structures. The direct visualization through the imaging techniques permits the highly accurate diagnosis with a low complication rate. In addition, the cross-sectional images produced helps to define the lesion location, accessibility, and suitability for biopsy.

Treatment of cancer

It includes a wide range of procedures, from placing catheters to the extremely advanced procedures such as radioembolization, radiofrequency, Ablative Techniques and other techniques to treat such as colorectal, breast, gallbladder, pancreas, esophageal, stomach, lungs, melanoma and sarcomas. All these procedures involve minimal invasion and reduced complication rate.

Side effects

IR techniques and procedures may reduce the side effects that are typically associated with the traditional procedures of cancer treatment that are surgery, chemotherapy and radiation therapy. But there may be side effects such as fatigue and pain.