Public release date: 26-Mar-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Ellen Acconcia eacconcia@sirweb.org 703-460-5582 Society of Interventional Radiology
A minimally invasive treatment may target hunger at its source, another uses X-ray visible embolic beads to block arteries to the stomach and suppress hunger and a third explores the use of stem cells to repair vertebral disc degeneration. Initial results from all these studies were reported at the Society of Interventional Radiology's 37th Annual Scientific Meeting in San Francisco, Calif.
Approximately 127 million Americans (or 65 percent) are overweight, obese or morbidly obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The rate of morbid obesity is also rising rapidly. Two new studies that explored the use of proven interventional radiology treatments in new ways may have the potential to help individuals with morbid obesity.
"Currently, there are three clinically viable surgical alternatives for obesity: gastric bypass surgery, gastric pacing and endoscopic gastric banding. These procedures have varying success rates; they are invasive, require extensive gastric/bowel reconstruction or external devices and can have significant surgical complications," explained Charles Y. Kim, M.D., assistant professor of radiology at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C., and lead investigator on one of the studies.
"Our promising results led us to believe that a minimally invasive interventional radiology treatmentcalled bariatric arterial embolizationwould allow for precise targeting of a specific portion of a person's stomach in order to decrease production of ghrelin, a hormone that causes hunger. This treatment could one day be the answer for those who have not been successful with weight loss through diet and exercise," said Kim.
Embolization is a minimally invasive technique where an interventional radiologist uses a thin catheter to inject tiny particles into an artery supplying the area being treated with the goal of blocking tiny vessels to starve it of its blood supply.
"Interventional radiologists have safely and effectively used embolization in many other disease states for decades," stated Kim. "For this study, we selectively blocked and decreased the blood flow to a very specific part of the stomach using specialized radiologic equipment, which led to significantly decreased levels of ghrelin in the animals that we treated. We found that when ghrelin levels decrease, appetite and hunger also decrease, causing weight loss in the treated animals relative to non-treated animals," Kim continued. "Bariatric arterial embolization may have a future use in treating obesity in humans by significantly suppressing appetite to achieve weight loss," he said.
The researchers will continue studies aimed at the reduction and elimination of complications, such as stomach ulcers, and expressed confidence that bariatric arterial embolization is very close to moving toward the clinical trial phase in the United States.
A second study tested a new type of X-ray-visible embolic bead in bariatric arterial embolization.
Read more here:
No pain, no gain: Weight loss, disc disease interventional radiology treatments coming
