Left to right: Two IRs wearing lead during a CT-guided procedure. / Mark Wholey, MD, FSIR, placing a stent. / Staff of Miami Vascular in the IR suite. / Douglas Redd, MD, demonstrating pediatric interventional radiology.
When James F. Benenati, MD, FSIR (2010–2011), began his career, vascular stents had just been FDA
approved and the only stents available were self- or balloon-expandable stents.
“Stent evolution has just been enormous,” Dr. Benenati said. “I believe that we will soon see the rise of biodegradable stents, which will degrade on their own and not leave a scaffold behind.”
Imaging
According to Curtis W. Bakal, MD, MPH, FSIR (2001–2002), the creation of digital imaging, which fully
replaced film, and rotatable C-arms were the most important evolution to happen during his career.
“The idea that you can rapidly produce angiography images digitally, as opposed to
cut film, just utterly transformed the 1976 First post-graduate course
The First Annual Course on Diagnostic and Therapeutic Angiography is offered at the Annual Conference of the SCVR in Puerto Rico. Roughly 177 people attend. Most of the course is devoted to angiography for diagnosis and assessment of patients for various therapeutic approaches, and there is a session that dealt with treatment of gastrointestinal bleeding. Other presentations cover arterial bleeding—infusion therapy and embolization. The society expands to 47 members.
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speed and accuracy with which we could do angiography,” said Robert L. Vogelzang, MD, FSIR (1997–1998). The simple act of placing a catheter into an artery and knowing that it would not only reliably catheterize the artery, but also very selectively catheterize into specific branches was unheard of when he began practice.
“I recall struggling to get subselective and into a second-order branch, and sometimes you just couldn’t because of the tools,” he said. “Now, it’s a matter of routine; it can be done very simply and very safely.”
1977 1978
Like the departure from film, the creation of ultrasound imaging changed everything, according to
Matthew S. Johnson, MD, FSIR (2021– 2022). When Dr. Johnson started as an IR fellow in 1992, jugular access was just beginning to catch on—and it was done without ultrasound.
“We didn’t stick jugular veins, we stuck subclavian veins, and mostly arteries,” he said. “But with ultrasound and the ability to see what we were doing in real time, it changed the way we practice to the extent that I don’t think there are many people not using ultrasound to gain access to veins or arteries today.”
Therapies The improvement in tools led to the improvement and evolution of procedures and new techniques; with new imaging modalities and catheters to match, IRs were able to refine and expand therapies, constantly making them safer and more efficient.
1979
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