Dr. Sriharsha Athreya got here to Niagara Health to flip its Interventional Radiology (IR) Department right into a hub of world-class affected person care shut to dwelling. Thanks to his efforts, assist from Niagara Health and funding from Cancer Care Ontario in 2019, Niagara Health is dwelling to one of a few IR packages in Ontario to provide specialized tumour treatment that requires minimal surgical intervention and restoration for sufferers. Called picture-guided tumour ablation, this low-danger, pinhole process executed underneath acutely aware sedation is used to deal with small tumours on the kidneys, lungs or liver through the use of a superfine probe to burn or freeze the cancerous cells. Patients are safely discharged from hospital the identical day. “This is proof-primarily based treatment for most cancers tumours, particularly small ones,” says Dr. Athreya, Head of Interventional Radiology and Oncology. “Previously, there have been solely a few centres in Ontario doing this: Toronto, Hamilton and London. Now we’re proud to say we’re providing this treatment domestically.” IR is a specialty of radiology the makes use of medical imaging, together with CT scans, fluoroscopy, MRI and ultrasound, to information minimally invasive surgical procedures that diagnose and deal with a range of circumstances. IR procedures embody biopsies, inserting picc strains, angioplasty or stents to unblock blood vessels, and treating cancers with tumour ablation or by way of chemo-embolization, which restricts a tumour’s blood provide. Since Dr. Athreya’s arrival in 2017, the IR Department added different fellowship-skilled interventional radiologists, diagnostic imaging nurses and medical radiation technologists. The staff additionally created a streamlined system to handle appointments, together with letting sufferers know forward of time what to count on on the day of their process. This ensures appointments run on time and any cancellations are crammed shortly to keep away from backlogs. Interventional radiologists are additionally now on name 24/7, eliminating the necessity to ship sufferers to different hospitals after hours for IR therapies. Patients like Fern Gow are grateful to have these providers shut to dwelling. Gow selected tumour ablation relatively than present process main surgical procedure to have half of her proper kidney eliminated after docs discovered a small tumour there. “The program is nice for individuals like me who don’t need to have surgical intervention and like one thing much less invasive,” Gow says. “I used to be actually comfortable to have this executed right here in Niagara by way of a remarkably excessive-high quality program by extremely certified professionals. If I had to go to Hamilton, it could have been harder.” The work of Dr. Athreya and his staff has touched practically each program in the hospital. IR is vital in the care of dialysis sufferers, as effectively. The department performs crucial vascular surgical procedures and procedures, together with angioplasties to preserve arteries and veins of dialysis sufferers open when fistulas begin to fail. These are “affected person lifelines that enable dialysis to clear their blood,” says Dr. Danny Lagrotteria, Head of Service for Nephrology. “They do quite a bit for vascular entry to assist dialysis care,” says Dr. Lagroterria. “Without them and the success of that program, we might have to ship sufferers to Hamilton. The availability of IR right here has executed quite a bit to enhance the standard of sufferers’ lives.”
https://www.niagarahealth.on.ca/site/news/2022/09/26/interventional-radiology-department-one-of-few-in-ontario-to-provide-specialized-tumour-treatment
