About Minimally Invasive cancer treatment options
What is interventional oncology?
Interventional oncology is the practice of providing minimally invasive, targeted treatment of cancer. Using image guidance and the most current techniques, RIA Endovascular physicians — specially trained, board-certified and fellowship trained interventional radiologists called interventional oncologists — treat cancerous tumors without medicating or affecting other parts of the body. We work with patients and physicians locally, nationally and internationally.
There are four modalities used to treat cancer
Interventional oncology is one of four modalities in a multidisciplinary team approach to the treatment of cancer and cancer-related disorders.
The others are:
- Medical Oncology
- Surgical Oncology
- Radiation oncology
Why are minimally invasive procedures preferred for treating cancer patients?
A small (percutaneous) cut used to access the affected organ, so recovery time and chance of infection are minimized. Another added benefit is that chemotherapy and radiation regimens are not interrupted by minimally invasive procedures.
What are the two minimally invasive approaches used by interventional radiologists to treat cancer?
Interventional oncology uses two approaches:
- Local Treatments
- — Specific tumors are treated directly. A needle is placed in a tumor and the tumor can then be reduced or eradicated by freezing or heating. This can be done in the lung, bone, kidney, adrenal gland and other sites to kill the tumor and/or treat pain.
Methods include:
- Curative Ablation – using extreme heat or cold to kill tumors with the same effectiveness as surgery
- Palliative Ablation – using extreme heat or cold to treat pain and reduce the size of tumors that cannot be cured
- Palliative Stabilization – using bone cement and orthopedic screws to treat pain or fractures caused by tumors in the pelvis.
- Regional Therapies
- — The region of an organ containing multiple lesions is treated. Regional therapies involve injecting a substance such as radioactive particles and-or chemotherapy particles into a specified area to treat multiple tumors, also referred to as lesions.
Such minimally invasive (non-surgical) therapies include:
- Yttrium-90 radioembolization
- Also known as selective internal radiation therapy or Y-90
- Chemoembolization
- – Chemo-laden inert beads are placed to block the blood supply to the tumors while delivering regionally specific chemotherapy to the region of the tumor.
- Transarterial chemoembolization (TACE)
- – A procedure using small embolic particles coated with chemotherapeutic agents (called drug-eluting beads) that are selectively injected selectively into the artery directly supplying the tumor to both restrict the tumor’s blood supply and deliver targeted chemotherapy
Other Interventional Radiology Procedures and Treatments
Other adjunctive procedures include drainage procedures, such as long-term catheters used to drain excess fluid from around the abdomen(paracentesis) and from the lungs (thoracentesis), and infusion port placement and removal are performed.