Intervention Radiology is a modern branch of medicine, with a very high technology content, which deals with the mini-invasive management of clinical problems. It represents the union between instrumental diagnostics and clinical-surgical activity, coming from a super-specialised branch of Diagnostic Radiology.

In oncology, the role of Intervention Radiology has rapidly grown both for invasive diagnostics (e.g. imaging-based needle-biopsies) and, especially, for loco-regional therapies as therapeutic alternative to traditional surgical and medical treatments. The factor which characterises the activity of this medical discipline is the precision with which diagnostic and therapeutic manoeuvres are performed with a percutaneous approach (= through the skin and without surgical cuts), thanks to the use of such instrumental methodologies as echography, CT, MR and fluoroscopy (X rays).

The Intervention Radiologist is, therefore, a physician specialised in instrumental diagnostic methodologies used as a guide in very focused diagnostic and therapeutic procedures.

The Intervention Radiology Unit of the European Institute of Oncology deals with the management of clinical problems, from diagnosis (also by means of biopsy) to the loco-regional treatment of neoplasies, in multidisciplinary collaboration with the clinical, surgical and medical departments.

Another large field of interest of Intervention Radiology is the mini-invasive management of post-surgical clinical complications, such as the control of haemorrhages and the drainage of abscessual collections, which in the past could only be faced with complex and invasive surgeries.

One of the first examples in Europe, the Intervention Radiology Unit of IEO manages also its own beds, which are reserved to the patients who need an intervention treatment.