ABSTRACT
Over the past three decades, a variety of invasive diagnostic and therapeutic procedures have been developed by radiologists. The term interventional radiology (IR) most appropriately refers to therapeutic procedures performed under imaging guidance.1 However, diagnostic invasive techniques are usually carried out by interventional radiologists and are included in this chapter. The emergence of IR as a specialty has been made possible by the enormous technological advances in relation to catheter and instrument design and manufacture, imaging systems and radiological expertise. Some of these procedures have largely replaced more invasive and hazardous surgical alternatives; for example, tunnelled central venous catheters are now usually inserted using imaging-guided percutaneous techniques under local anaesthesia, rather than open surgery under general anaesthesia. A summary of the main types of interventional procedures is shown in Table 7.1.
