Interventional Radiology
with Malonnie Kinnison, MD
When is interventional radiology used?
When people think of radiology services, they mostly think of diagnostic tests, such as MRI, CT and PET scans. But, radiology services are also used to treat a wide variety of conditions. “I think the fact that we also are able to treat patients is an important concept,” says Malonnie Kinnison, MD, Director of Interventional Radiology Services at GBMC. “We treat a whole scope of problems through minimally invasive treatments that offer a quick recovery.”
Many medical conditions, including vascular diseases, tumors and kidney stones, may require interventional radiology services and according to Dr. Kinnison, about 80 percent of interventional radiology procedures are therapeutic. “There isn’t a single department in the hospital that we don’t interact with at some point and we usually interact with most departments every week,” she says.
According to Dr. Kinnison, services offered at an interventional radiology department are different from what is offered by a diagnostic radiology department. “Our services are different from diagnostic radiology because what we do is therapeutic,” she says. “For example, if a person came in with abdominal pain, they could get a CAT scan and a diagnostic radiologist would look at the scan and point out an abscess near the appendix. After the abscess was found, the interventional radiologist would be called on to treat the abscess.”
Interventional radiology is used for many forms of treatment including embolizing tumors and uterine fibroids, draining kidneys to relieve kidney stones or other blockages and increasing blood flow in blocked vessels. Throughout a procedure, radiologists, technologists, nurses and nurse practitioners communicate with the patient to make sure he or she understands and is comfortable with everything that happens.
A newer treatment is radio frequency ablation (RFA) for tumors. During RFA, a probe is inserted into a tumor and causes the cell to die due to heat. “Heating is controlled throughout the process and the tumor can be obliterated while sparing the rest of the organ,” says Dr. Kinnison.
One reason people opt for interventional radiology over traditional surgical treatments is because it is generally less invasive. “Patients are usually in the hospital one day at the most and most of what we do is on an outpatient basis,” says Dr. Kinnison, who supports Medical Imaging of Baltimore. “Interventional radiology procedures hurt less, but are very effective and because they are less invasive, people are able to get back to their normal lives a lot faster.”
Collaboration helps the GBMC Interventional Radiology Department provide the most appropriate treatments to patients. “We spend a lot of time working with other departments and specialists,” says Dr. Kinnison. “It is really important to work as a team so everyone knows what everyone else is doing and the patient wins.”
