Pinhole Surgery

Overview

Pinhole surgery is performed by MIOT’s expert interventional radiologists, whose expertise in imaging techniques enables them to guide small catheters and wires through the blood vessels to deliver treatment.

Using the body’s natural highway

The basis for pinhole surgery is simple: the human body has an intricate natural highway of arteries and veins that transport blood. Therefore, they can also be used to access every part and organ. In pinhole surgery, surgeons use catheters as thin as a hair to deliver treatment directly to the diseased area, through a puncture the size of a pinhole.

There are two main kinds of procedures done: those that ‘open’ – to remove a block and re-establish blood-flow in a blocked vessel, and those that ‘close’ – to control bleeding, cut blood supply to tumours, etc.

Dealing with blocks

Blocks can occur in blood vessels anywhere in the body: in the neck, leading to a stroke; in the leg, leading to gangrene; in the kidney, leading to renal failure, and so on. Previously,In these cases, surgery was the only means of reestablishing blood flow. Now, with pinhole surgery, it can be carried out with local anaesthesia.

In an opening procedure, we insert a catheter through the groin vessel (chosen because it is the widest vessel) and, using an imaging guidance, navigate beyond the obstruction and insert a stent to restore blood flow.