What is interventional oncology?

Interventional oncology is a multi-disciplinary approach to treating cancer. Bradford Wood, MD, senior investigator at the National Institutes of Health, explains how it helps doctors identify and treat tumors at earlier stages.

Transcript

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Interventional oncology is a category within interventional radiology to some.

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To others, it's a multidisciplinary approach to cancer. And it's the use of minimally invasive image-guided therapies

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towards cancer goals. Imaging has traditionally been applied to cancer and to other diseases as a way

00:20

to get this current status. So a freeze-frame picture. We often wait months, years afterwards

00:27

to see how things have changed and then go make major treatment decisions based upon that information. One of the exciting things about my discipline

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is we're investigating new ways to apply that imaging in real time while you're evaluating the patient,

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potentially while you're treating the patient, many times with minimally invasive image-guided therapies-- or "video game surgery," some people call it.

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But we apply that imaging information when we need it most-- while the patient is on a procedure table, while we are actually doing a therapeutic procedure

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to the patient, with the patient, for the patient. And that information thereby closes the gap

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between diagnosis and therapy. You can't do it without having the chemist to help design the particles.

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Having a software engineer help design the navigation pieces required to get to the right spot. Having an image processing person

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help define what information needs to be extracted. Having nurse practitioners and nurses help gather data and help you interpret things

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to the patients. Help educate patients. Having a mechanical engineer build some of the devices and design them so they're patient-specific.

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I mean, the list goes on. It's just an incredible place to work and it's an incredible example of the symphony of academic medicine and what it can do.