Gastroenterology Services

A CVAC is a tube that is inserted beneath your skin so there is a pain-free way for doctors or nurses to draw your blood or give you medication or nutrients.

Doctors often recommend CVACs for patients who regularly have:

• Chemotherapy treatments
• Infusions of antibiotics or other medications
• Nutritional supplements
• Hemodialysis

Doctors often recommend placing a gastrostomy tube in the stomach for a variety of conditions in which a patient is unable to take sufficient food by mouth. In the procedure, the feeding tube is inserted through a small nick in the skin and into the stomach under X-ray guidance.

Transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunts (TIPS) are used for complications associated with portal hypertension. Which is most frequently in patients with liver disease such as cirrhosis or hepatitis.

Through the use of fluoroscopy, “real-time” imaging, TIPS is used to connect two veins in the liver, with a metal stent. This allows blood to bypass the liver and reduces the high blood pressure in the intestines and spleen.

A TIPS procedure is usually performed under general anesthesia, but may also be performed with intravenous sedation.

Bile ducts may become blocked preventing normal drainage of bile from the liver. Percutaneous Cholangiography is an X-ray test where contrast is directly injected into the bile ducts to obtain a picture. This is used to evaluate the presence of suspected bile duct stones; determine the cause of cholangitis (inflammation of the bile duct); evaluate suspected bile duct inflammatory disorders, and to determine the site of a bile duct leak.

If the bile ducts are in fact blocked, a catheter or stent is put in place so the bile can drain normally again. The procedure involves the advancement of a small needle into the bile duct and injecting contrast.

Percutaneous cholecystostomy is procedure performed for those with acute cholecystitis who cannot undergo surgery or general anesthesia to remove the diseased gallbladder (cholecystectomy).

The gallbladder bile may become overwhelmingly infected and require immediate drainage. The Interventional Radiologist places a small drainage catheter into the gallbladder using ultrasound guidance.

When bleeding takes place in the digestive tract, arteriography can be used to pinpoint the bleeding for treatment with either surgery or transcatheter embolization.

A thin spaghetti-like catheter is threaded into the arteries and X-ray contrast is injected to create a “roadmap.”  Then, embolization may be used to stop the bleeding, by “plugging up” the bleeding artery.