Abstract
Interventional medical practitioners are specialists who do minimally invasive procedures instead of surgery or other treatment. Most often, these procedures utilize various imaging and catheterization techniques in order to diagnose and treat vascular issues in the body. Interventionalist techniques, including injecting arteries with dye, visualizing these via x-ray, and opening up blockages, developed from early pioneers' bold and sometimes controversial experiments which aimed to find safer and better ways to treat coronary artery and other atherosclerotic vascular disease. Currently, the major interventional specialties are interventional (or vascular) radiology, interventional cardiology, and endovascular surgical (interventional) neuroradiology. All three are perfecting the use of stents and other procedures to keep diseased arteries open, while also evaluating the application these procedures. The rapid new development of imaging technologies, mechanical devices, and types of treatment, while certainly beneficial to the patient, can also lead to ambiguity regarding specific specialty claims on certain techniques and devices. While these practitioners can be in competition with each other, cooperation and communication are the most advantageous methods to deal with these "turf wars." All of the interventionalists are needed to deliver the best medical care to patients, now and in the future.
Highlights
In the most general of terms, an interventional medical practitioner is a doctor with a medical specialty who has been trained to do minimally invasive procedures, usually involving blood vessels, which can be done instead of actual surgery
The benefits of interventionalist techniques are in the often reduced recovery time and pain associated with the procedures, due to their less invasive nature
This field, and its specialties, offers extremely important and beneficial advances in the world of medicine, it is not within the scope of this article to describe all the discoveries, nor to exhaustively state the most up-todate procedures used for treatment
Summary
In the most general of terms, an interventional medical practitioner is a doctor with a medical specialty who has been trained to do minimally invasive procedures, usually involving blood vessels, which can be done instead of actual surgery. AANS: American Association of Neurological Surgeons; ACGME: Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education; CAS: carotid artery stenting; CAVATAS: Carotid and Vertebral Artery Transluminal Angioplasty Study; CEA: carotid endarterectomy; CNS: central nervous system; CREST: Carotid Revascularization by Endarterectomy versus Stenting Trial; CT: computed tomography; CTA: computed tomography angiography; DIRECT: Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology Enhanced Clinical Training; EVS: endovascular surgical; MR: magnetic resonance; IC: interventional cardiologist; IR: interventional radiologist; MRA: magnetic resonance angiography; MRI: magnetic resonance imaging; PET: positron emission tomography; RESEARCH: Rapamycin Eluting Stent Evaluated at Rotterdam Cardiology Hospital; SAPPHIRE: Study of Angioplasty with Protection in Patients at High Risk for Endarterectomy; SECURE: Compassionate Use of SES; SIR: Society of Interventional Radiology; TIPS: transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunt
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