‘Interventional radiology is safer, less-painful’, says Thiruvananthapuram doctor

Dr Manish Kumar Yadav, a radiologist at KIMS Hospital in Thiruvananthapuram, shares his experience and explains the benefits of treatment using interventional methods.
For representational purposes
For representational purposes

KOCHI: Interventional Radiology is an image-guided diagnosis and minimally invasive treatment which is gaining popularity.

It is a field that is gradually enjoying its progress as it offers a treatment which is relatively risk-free.

Dr Manish Kumar Yadav, a radiologist at KIMS Hospital in Thiruvananthapuram, shares his experience and explains the benefits of treatment using interventional methods.

Dr Manish Kumar
Yadav

According to him, an interventional method is a rather safe method instead of the otherwise excruciating surgery.

In the method, instead of a cut or a keyhole, a miniature pinhole is created through which small surgical equipment are guided inside the body with the help of radiological apparatus such as X-Ray, ultrasound or Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI).

“It is advantageous to patients as they don’t have to take days of rest after surgery.

They can leave the hospital as soon as a day after the surgery in most cases.

The procedure does not leave a mark on the body either, as there are no stitches involved,” says Manish.

In addition to this, it does not require any form of anaesthesia. A branch of interventional radiology practised by Manish is interventional oncology, which is used to target and treat a particular area of a solid tumour in the body, such as with the lungs, liver, kidney, thyroid, parathyroid, bones and even with metastatic tumours.

A small needle is inserted into the tumour through the pinhole, through which heat is passed which in turn destroys the tumour.

Manish says, “In the liver, for instance, there are certain situations where nothing much can be done. So, we perform targeted therapy to the liver bypassing internal radiation or chemo medicine to the liver tube. The advantage is that we can give the target radiation or chemo only into the tumour and the side effect to the rest of the body is less.”

Another part of the medical practice is neuro intervention,  a method to treat conditions within the blood vessels of the brain or the spinal cavity.

Prior to the application of neuro intervention, surgery was the sole method applicable to treat aneurysms and arteriovenous malformation (AVM), which cause abnormal blood vessels that can lead to hemorrhagic strokes.

“We treat this condition by going through the leg artery. We put a coil to treat the malformation. The recovery is faster since we are not opening the brain or handling the brain in any way. It is shown to have a better chance of survival as compared to open surgery," says the doctor.

Interventional radiology uses expensive equipment. But the method balances the overall cost as compared to an open surgery due to the speedy recovery that helps cut overall hospital costs.

“The awareness for this method is relatively low since it came to India only six years ago,” says Manish. KIMS and Sri Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology are the only hospitals in Thiruvananthapuram which offer these treatments.

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