Interventional radiology (IR) is a well-known subspecialization today that encompasses a wide range of minimally invasive procedures under the guidance of imaging techniques.
The evolution and rapid development of IR as we know it today began in the 1950s.
Just one year after Rontgen's discovery of X-rays in 1895, Eduard Haschek and Otto Theodor Lidenthal did the first angiography of the veins of an amputated arm using a mixture of chalk, mercuric sulphide and Vaseline, but another 20 years passed before the first diagnostic angiograms.
From the 1920s to the 1950s, diagnostic angiography was rarely performed, most often as arteriography by translumbar puncture of the aorta, until the Swedish radiologist Sven Ivan Seldinger did not develop a simple technique of percutaneous placement of a diagnostic catheter in a vessel (the technique is now called the Seldinger technique). This technique proved to be revolutionary because trocars and wide-lumen needles were previously used for arterial access.
After Seldinger's invention, angiography began to be used more and more frequently in radiology. However, it gives interventional radiology a real boost Charles T. Dotter, who published an article in 1964 presenting the successful treatment of an 82-year-old patient with critical ischemia by dilation of the superficial femoral artery. Further progress in the treatment of patients with steno-occlusive atherosclerotic disease was provided by Andreas Gruentzig, who described the first balloon angioplasty in 1977.
The term "interventional radiology" was first mentioned by Alexander Margulis in 1967 in the American Journal of Roentgenology, which encompasses a number of vascular and non-vascular interventions.
In addition to PTA, he mentions drainage of abscesses, biopsies, placement of central venous catheters and others. Since 1972, we have followed the strong development of non-vascular interventional procedures.
Further development included technological discoveries such as stents (Palmaz) and stent-grafts, thrombolysis and embolization techniques, and interventional cardiology is distinguished as a separate profession due to the large number of patients.
Today, IR is one of the fastest growing medical subspecialties, and our task is to popularize and promote IR, with the aim of expanding the treatment options for our patients.
Literature:
Murphy TP, Soares GM. The evolution of interventional radiology. Semin Intervent Radiol. 2005 Mar;22(1):6-9. doi: 10.1055/s-2005-869570. PMID: 21326660; PMCID: PMC3036249.
https://www.cirse.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/cirse_dokument_2020_history-of-IR_prod.pdf