Radiology's sublime intervention

Radiology's image, excuse the expression, is of doctors who look but don't cure. But a band of subspecialists is moving beyond diagnosis into treatment that is short of open surgery, to be sure, but can be just as effective.

Interventional radiology, or IR, grew out of diagnostic procedures to track down disease in blood vessels. If a blocked artery is suspected, a radiologist threads a narrow tube, or catheter, into a blood vessel and up to the area of interest, delivering a squirt of dye so any blockage will stand out on X-rays. It was a short step, says Scott Trerotola, head of IR at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, to start fixing the problems they found.


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