Vascular Disease

Vascular disease includes peripheral artery disease, aortic aneurysm, carotid artery disease and more. Some of the interventional radiology procedures used to treat vascular disease include:

Angioplasty

With or without vascular stenting, angioplasty is a minimally invasive procedure performed to improve blood flow in the body’s arteries and veins.

In an angioplasty procedure, imaging techniques are used to guide a balloon-tipped catheter (a long, thin plastic tube) into an artery or vein and advance it to where the vessel is narrow or blocked. The balloon is then inflated to open the vessel, deflated and removed.

During angioplasty, a small wire mesh tube called a stent may be permanently placed in the newly opened artery or vein to help it remain open. There are two types of stents: bare stents (wire mesh) and covered stents (also commonly called stent grafts).

Johns Hopkins Medicine

Aortic Stent Grafting

An increasing number of patients benefit from the endovascular repair of abdominal aortic aneurysm. Improvements in device design now enable less invasive aortic stent grafting in patients who were previously candidates for open aneurysm repair. Recent clinical studies show endovascular aneurysm repair patients have lower perioperative mortality, less operative blood loss and lower transfusion requirements compared with patients undergoing open surgery.

Because patients can return home the following day, length of hospital stay is dramatically reduced.

Thrombolysis

Blood clots are the primary cause of heart attack and stroke; if a blood clot breaks from in the leg and travels to the lungs, it can also cause a pulmonary embolism. Thrombolytic therapy breaks up existing blood clots and helps prevent new ones from forming.

Thrombolysis employs a catheter to reach and dissolve blood clots. Your interventional radiologist uses X-rays to guide the catheter to the clot’s precise location. They will then either remove the clot or use angioplasty and stenting to preserve the blood vessel.

If you have been struggling with vascular disease, reach out to our expert team to request an appointment.