Interventional Radiology

Interventional radiology (IR) has tremendous potential for treatment of serious maladies in pets. Interventional radiology involves the use of contemporary imaging modalities to gain access to different structures to deliver materials for therapeutic reasons. The veterinary community is acquiring and refining similar procedures in human medicine to provide non-surgical alternatives with decreased mortality rates, minimal anesthesia time, reduced hospital stays and lower costs.

Interventional radiology involves the use of fluoroscopy to gain access to different structures in order to deliver materials for therapeutic purposes. These minimally invasive techniques are currently being investigated in veterinary medicine and have the potential to provide alternatives for our patients in whom conventional therapies are declined, not indicated, or associated with excessive morbidity or mortality. IR can be applied to any body system in patients of all sizes and therefore will likely have very broad applications in our veterinary population.

The Advantages of Using Interventional Radiology Techniques

The use of IR techniques in veterinary patients offers a number of advantages to more traditional therapies. These procedures are minimally invasive and can therefore lead to reduced peri-operative morbidity and mortality, shorter anesthesia times and shorter hospital stays. Some less equipment-intensive procedures can result in reduced costs as well. In addition, some techniques such as chemoembolization of tumors or palliative stenting for malignant obstructions offer treatment options for patients with various conditions that may not be amenable to standard therapies or when the standard-of-care treatments are associated with excessive morbidity, cost, or poor outcome.

Current Veterinary Applications...

Support New Procedures

You can help provide the much needed philanthropic support to perfect such procedures. Your support of this program will enable The Animal Medical Center to continue to be center of excellence in minimally invasive procedures and provide training to interested veterinarians around the world.