Every year more than 1.6 million Americans receive a cancer diagnosis. The five-year survival rate has grown in 30 years from 49% to 67%. This is due to earlier detection as well as improvement in treatments.
One of those treatment improvements is in the field of interventional oncology. This is a less-invasive treatment that occurs on an outpatient basis. This procedure occurs with sophisticated imaging technology. This allows for intricate and often complex procedures. With less downtime and less pain, many patients are opting for interventional oncology.
Coastal Vascular Center specializes in minimally-invasive interventional oncology treatments. Interventional radiologists perform these procedures. They are faster, safer, and less painful than more invasive surgical options.
Interventional oncology has become the 4th pillar in the multidisciplinary care of cancer. This is in conjunction with medical, surgical, and radiation oncology. Coastal Vascular interventional radiologists who perform procedures in a multidisciplinary team approach. This approach includes prevention, early detection, state of the art treatment options. Additionally, it includes patient support, clinical research, and long-term patient follow-up.
Interventional oncology provides treatment of cancer and cancer-related problems. Utilizing targeted, minimally invasive therapies and advanced image-guided technology we can provide oncology treatment. The increased prevalence of several types of cancer and the desire for personalized cancer therapies, increase the demand for minimally invasive oncologic treatments. Such as the procedures offered by Coastal Vascular.
Interventional oncology procedures can be generally divided into two categories: diagnostic procedures, and therapeutic procedures.
Diagnostic procedures obtain accurate diagnoses of suspicious tissue. It also may include three types of biopsies: fine needle aspiration, core needle biopsy, and vacuum assisted biopsy.
Therapeutic procedures can be further divided. One is ablation techniques, used to destroy or remove the tissue. Another is embolization techniques used to shrink the tissue. Finally, there is palliative techniques that improve patient quality of life and reduce pain.
Coastal Vascular offers several types of therapeutic procedures including:
- Percutaneous Tumor Ablation: Radiofrequency ablation, microwave ablation, and cryoablation are modalities used to burn or freeze tumors in the lung, liver, kidney, bone, and other organs. Results from clinical studies have shown that ablation rivals surgery for several types of tumors.
- Chemoembolization: Minimally invasive procedure to treat deliver chemotherapy and occlusive agents directly into arteries feeding a tumor. Chemoembolization is for liver cancer and metastatic liver disease and kills tumors and improve survival.
- Radioembolization (also known as Selective Internal Radiation or SIRT): Minimally invasive therapy utilized to intra- arterially deliver radioactive yttrium-90 particles to treat primary and metastatic liver cancer. This therapy is often effective even when after chemotherapy has failed and has minimal side effects.
- Interventional Pain Management: Procedures utilized to reduce or relieve pain and improve a cancer patient’s quality of life include epidural injections, celiac plexus neurolysis, nerve blocks, ablation, and vertebroplasty.
Because interventional oncology procedures are minimally invasive, they cause less pain and fewer complications. Additionally it requires much less time for the procedure as well as recovery time. For an appointment, contact us today.
