Gastrointestinal interventional radiology : technics and preliminary results

Gastrointestinal interventional radiology allows the positioning of feeding tubes in difficult situations, as well as the balloon dilatation of stenoses and the transintestinal drainage of fistulas and collections, with some advantages over endoscopic and surgical procedures. In the present series feeding tubes were positioned in 26 patients, both to get over the strictures in the upper gastrointestinal tract and to exclude fistulous tracts or anastomotic leaks from alimentary transit. Balloon dilatation was performed in 10 patients with stenoses of different aetiologies, at different levels of the gastrointestinal tract: in all cases the clinical symptoms diminished. All the 7 non-neoplastic stenoses were successfully treated (follow-up 6-27 months). The draining of abscesses through the enteric fistulous tract did allow the reduction/resolution of all collections in a short time. These procedures are simple and safe, and help to reduce the interval between diagnosis and therapy. Their failure does not prevent the use of other therapeutic procedures.