Most image-guided procedures and treatments at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) are performed in our state-of-the-art Center for Image-Guided Interventions on the second floor of Memorial Hospital. Prior to your procedure, you will meet with your doctor for a consultation to help you better understand what to expect.
After checking in, you’ll be escorted to a small, private room, or bay, while we prepare for your procedure. Each bay includes a bed, sliding glass doors, a television, and a guest chair so you can be alone in a private space with a family member or friend. It’s a calm, comforting space, where usually you’ll spend about 45 minutes until you’re called for your procedure. Our medical staff will monitor your vital signs and give you intravenous fluids during this time as well.
While most of the IR procedures we do take place at our Center for Image-Guided Interventions in Manhattan, we’ve begun to offer some services at our newest Westchester location, in West Harrison, New York, including image-guided diagnostic biopsies, placement of ports for chemotherapy, and palliative techniques such as draining abnormal fluid pockets with catheters. In the future, we plan to expand these services to include targeted image-guided treatments to control local tumor growth.
Depending on the procedure and your particular situation, you’ll receive either sedation (from which you may remain conscious but relaxed and comfortable) or general anesthesia (from which you won’t be conscious). You’ll also receive local anesthesia to reduce sensation in the parts of the body receiving the procedure.
Afterward, you’ll be escorted to a similar bay in the post-procedure area for recovery, where we’ll monitor you for a short period of time. For most IR procedures, you’ll be able to go home the same day, although we ask that you be accompanied by a caregiver. We’ll remind you to bring this support person, or have them available to pick you up, when we schedule your procedure.
We have several private consultation rooms where you can speak with the interventional radiologist before or after the procedure. If you’ve had one of the more involved procedures, we may want to follow up with you regularly for a period of time.