2025 February Newsletter

BSIR ESSAY AND CASE STUDY AWARDS 2024

Each year, BSIR offers Essay and Case Study Awards to support Medical Students, Foundation Doctors, Trainees and Nurses & Radiographers to attend the BSIR Annual Scientific Meeting.

The quality of these applications is often high and we are pleased to share the top scoring applications in this edition of the newsletter.

TOP SCORING BSIR CASE STUDY AWARD

Why does Interventional Radiology inspire you and what excites you most about the future of Interventional Radiology?

Noemi Cinti, Medical Student, Hull York Medical School

Interventional Radiology (IR) is a young specialty, constantly introducing new techniques to the medical world. However, novel approaches pose their own unprecedented difficulties. Particularly, it was fascinating for me to come across a “world-first” case in my local hospital: the endovascular treatment of a paraophthalmic internal carotid artery (ICA) aneurysm in a patient with a type II right sided aortic arch (RAA). This case study will describe the strategies employed, and highlight how it inspired me.

This case involved a female 45-year-old patient with hypertension who presented with a 1-hour history of dysarthria and facial drooping. A non-contrast CT excluded acute intracranial infarction, but a 9mm left para-ophthalmic ICA aneurysm was discovered. She later underwent endovascular treatment.

Under general anaesthetic, the right common femoral artery was accessed under ultrasound guidance and a short 8-French groin sheath (Cordis, USA) was placed. A RAA with an aberrant left subclavian artery (type II) was found on navigation. Given the complexity of this anatomy, a variety of angiographic catheters was trialled. Eventually a combination of a JB2 curved catheter (Cordis) and Terumo wire (Terumo, Japan) allowed stable access into the left common carotid and ICA. A 6-French Benchmark catheter (Penumbra, Australia) was exchanged into the left ICA, although in a lower than usual position. Owing to this and the reduced stability of a co-axial system, following 3D rotational angiography, coil embolisation of the aneurysm was performed, using an Echelon 10 microcatheter (Medtronic, USA) and 6 Target coils (Stryker, USA) (Figure 1).

The patient recovered well with no complications. She was discharged after 24 hours, and 6-month follow-up MR angiography demonstrated complete aneurysm occlusion.

Read the full article: https://issuu.com/bsir/docs/2025_february_newsletter