Radiology is the most rapidly evolving specialty within medicine. And soon there will be further advances. These advances have been accompanied by a steady increase in the range of interventional radiology. Core biopsy after skilled mammographic and ultrasound investigations means that there are relatively few surprises for the breast surgeon; patients should live longer as a result of quicker and more accurate diagnosis.
Most abdominal abscesses are now drained via radiologically guided catheters. Vascular radiologists offer a long list of effective intervention procedures, and the radiological/surgical vascular team of the future should be able to deal with most abdominal aortic aneurysms by stents rather than formal surgery. For such interventional procedures, there are clear outcomes—eg, the patient is dead or alive, the graft is patent or occluded. The evidence for the benefits of…
