Interventional Imaging

• You will remove your clothes from the waist down. You will put on a gown or a wrap to cover yourself while you get ready for the exam.

To have the procedure done you will be lying on you back with your legs in stirrups. Then the doctor will insert a speculum into your vagina in the same way as for a pelvic exam. A local anesthesia will be used so you don’t feel pain. This will be given through a needle attached to a syringe. You are most likely going to feel a slight sting, then a dull ache or cramp. Then the loop is inserted into your vagina to the cervix. There will be different sizes and shapes of the loops that will be used. There is a small chance that you may feel faint during the procedure. If you do feel faint tell your doctor immediately.

• A needle will be inserted into your arm to administer the IV contrast material.

Then the doctor will insert a speculum into your vagina in the same way as for a pelvic exam. An anesthesia will be used so you don’t feel that much pain. This will be given to you through a needle attached to a syringe. You are most likely going to feel a slight sting, then a dull ache or cramp. Then the loop is inserted into your vagina to the cervix. There are different sizes and shapes of the loops that the doctor will use. There is a small chance that you may feel faint during the procedure. If you do feel faint tell your doctor

Interventional radiologists treat and diagnose disease using imaging equipment. Interventional radiologists sometimes sub-specialise further so that they only treat abnormalities of the brain or spinal cord (neuro intervention) or of the blood vessels other places in the body (angiointervention). Interventional radiology is a minimally invasive procedures using X-ray, magnetic or ultrasound images to help guide the procedures, mainly done with small instruments and very thin plastic tubes called catheters inserted through an artery or vein.

If the ultrasound has findings, or if there are clinical symptoms that suggest proximal disease (iliocaval), then an x-ray venogram of the pelvis may be performed. However, it is not the method of choice. This is beneficial though because compared to CT, it uses a significant less amount of radiation. It still uses radiation, but not as much. The lowest rating in the rankings is x-ray venography of the lower extremity. This exam is generally used in conjunction with thrombolysis. Thrombolysis is a treatment to dissolve dangerous clots in the blood vessels to improve blood flow and prevent damage to the tissues and organs. It may involve the injection of clot-busting drugs through an intravenous line or through a long catheter that delivers drugs directly to the site of the blockage. These types of exams are not as common as the use of an MRI or CT machine may be because of the severity of a

Diagnostic imaging such as MRI, PET/CT scans and X-Rays all allow doctors to “see” inside your body. This type of imaging takes photographs of your bones and organs, allowing them to much more easily narrow down the cause of a disease or injury. As great and helpful as this may sound, it is not always such an easy thing for a patient to endure. It is not that the procedure is harmful or even painful, but many times claustrophobia, fear of test results, and the anxiety of going through a procedure that they are not familiar with can cause a patient to become very fearful and stressed. It is very important that the technician communicate with the patient and help them to remain calm and at ease. How can we improve communication between the patient and the technologist? Is it possible to reduce anxiety in someone who suffers from claustrophobia during imaging?

Interventional radiology and image-guided medicine is a specialty of radiology in which radiologists diagnose and treat diseases without surgery by placing tiny tubes through the body's arteries and organs using X-rays and other imaging methods to guide them. This allows radiologists to deliver medications directly to a disease site, open blocked blood vessels, obtain biopsies, and perform a range of other procedures.

Thank you Jinky for your very informative post with regards interventional radiology. Diagnostic imaging is truly valuable to our profession given that we focus on the specificities of the musculoskeletal system and has been a critical component of clinical decision making.

The nurse started a pick-line, I was measured for the compression stockings and the anesthetist explained every aspect of the procedure. Like before, I will have the spinal block for the surgery.

Minimally invasive procedures are done on the patient’s abdomen, blood vessels, chest, uterus, joints, and gastrointestinal tract.

On November 8, 1895 Wilhelm Roentgen discovered x-rays. X-rays have evolved drastically over the past 120 years and there have been many new discoveries that are used to this day in diagnostic medicine. Some of the different modalities in medical imaging have also been very helpful when studying art and archeology. Both x-rays and CT’s are used to look at art to confirm its authenticity, archeology for the study of mummies, and also archeology to exam the charred scrolls at Herculaneum and pottery.

This is a non-invasive procedure that is performed in order to view the through the chest cavity including the heart, lungs, blood vessels, and chest bones. (National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, 2010)

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a powerful medical imaging modality which gives high spatial resolution images without radiation risk. MRI acquires signals from hydrogen protons of subject. Under external static magnetic field (B0), the spins of hydrogen protons precess with a Larmor frequency, while they align parallel to the direction of B0. The spins align antiparallel to the direction of B0 when additional radio-frequency (RF) pulse with the Larmer requency is ap-plied. After RF pulse is removed, the protons relax through the recovery of mag-netization parallel to the direction of B0 (longitudinal or T1 relaxation) and the de-cay of transverse magnetization caused by the de-phasing of the spins (transverse or T2 relaxation) [4]. The tissue specific parameters of proton density, T1 relaxa-tion, and T2 relaxation gives contrast to the MR images. Due to this principle, MRI gives great spatial resolution for soft tissues which contain more water molecules. The major drawback of this technique is its relatively poor sensitivity, due to the weak signal from protons [5]. T1 and T2 contrast agents which shorten relaxation times have been developed to overcome its poor sensitivity and improve specifici-ty. Gd(III) chelates are the most widely used T1 contrast agents in clinical applica-tions [6]. Although Gd(III) chelates have good paramagnetic property and short-en T1 relaxation, the toxicity of gadolinium ions and their rapid renal clearance limit their use [7]. To reduce

As a result of the success of the Cox Maze procedure, catheter ablation strategies were developed in an attempt to replicate the