Interventional Oncology

Over the last 20 years, the interventional oncology (IO) subspecialty of interventional radiology has emerged as a growing field and is considered by many a pillar of oncology.  Today, IO physicians are essentially involved in all the multidisciplinary tumor boards for deciding the treatment and management of cancer patients.

This service line comprises of three areas: diagnosis, therapy, and symptom palliation.  Interventional oncologists' aid in the diagnosis of malignancies through percutaneous biopsies of lesions using CT, ultrasound and x-ray.  Once the malignancy is confirmed, they also place the ports for chemotherapy using ultrasound and x-ray.  Interventionalists utilize angiography to perform minimally invasive therapeutic procedures such as embolization of vascular tumors to cut off the blood supply of these lesions.  Chemoembolization and Y-90 radioembolization can be performed for certain liver tumors.  For smaller liver or kidney tumors, another therapy performed by the IO physician is percutaneous ablation of the tumor with radiofrequency, microwave or cryoablation.  In addition, symptom palliation for painful bone lesions can be performed with ablation of the lesion followed by cement placement into the bone.