However, Dr Benjamin Dado Sarkodie, the only Ghanaian Endovascular and Interventional Radiologist, said knowledge about the procedure is still low in the country, with some doctors not even knowing about it. He added that a lot of awareness needs to be created about it.
“Interventional radiology treatments are now first-line care for a wide variety of conditions and it has become important that patients get a second opinion and know all of the treatment options before consenting to any procedure or surgery,” he said.
Ghana and the world as a whole have lost some of its human resource to surgeries gone bad and sicknesses doctors had declared hopeless. Some have even lost their limbs to diabetes-related issues because amputating their legs was the only option available, and families have had to live with the pain.
He added that when people get to know about the options available to them, they would make informed decisions
Explaining the procedure, he said: “All we need is minimal invasive, meaning we use a small hole or cut under image guidance. With the small incision, we are able to do a lot of work under image guidance.
“In the past, people who have diabetes and have certain wounds or non-healing ulcers on their legs had their legs amputated or chopped off surgically to save their lives, but with interventional radiology, we can open up some vessels to restore blood flow and save their limbs.
“Women with blocked fallopian tubes and cannot give birth, we are able to open the tubes up and increase their chances of getting pregnant.”
Dr Sarkodie said the advantages of interventional radiology include patients getting shorter stay in the hospital; in some cases, patients can go home immediately after some of the procedures. “An example is that someone with a fibroid can be treated and can be at work in three days time without cuts or scars. I must add that there is a wide array of things that can be done with interventional radiology.
“Even though we cannot prevent people from dying, we can at least increase their lifespan.”
As part of efforts to create awareness in the country, Dr Sarkodie said the Ghana Society of Interventional Radiology throughout the year has been educating doctors at various levels, having faculty and department meetings on the procedures to let them know how they can help patients better.
The society would also be having a one-day conference in August to sensitise medical practitioners and the general public on the role Interventional radiology.
He said it was important for doctors to know about the procedure, adding that when that happens they could tell their patients how the procedure could help them.
Dr Sarkodie says government can help by getting more people to train in interventional radiology, and get more equipment because they do not have all the necessary equipment at the moment. He said, fortunately, some new equipment have been installed at the Cardio Centre at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital and the new University of Ghana Hospital.
Interventional Radiology (IR), also known as vascular and interventional radiology (VIR) or surgical radiology, is an independent medical specialty which was a sub-specialty of radiology until recently and which uses minimally invasive image-guided procedures like X-rays, MRI, CT, ultrasound and other imaging modalities to diagnose and treat diseases in nearly every organ system.
Dr Sarkodie, who is also a lecturer at the University of Ghana School of Medicine and Dentistry, has been performing the procedure for patients in Ghana for the past two years.
With these procedures, he has been able to save the limbs of people who would have had their legs amputated, treated women with blocked tubes who are now pregnant, and treated people with liver cancers
