The Ghana Society of Interventional Radiology in collaboration with Mayo Clinic is holding a one-day conference to sensitise medical practitioners and the general public on the role of Interventional radiology in healthcare delivery.

The programme which is anchored on the theme “Hepatitis, Hepatobiliary Cancers and the Role of Interventional Radiology” will take place on August 10, 2016.

Lecturer of the University of Ghana Medical School, Dr Benjamin D. Sarkodie, was hopeful the programme would provide a great platform to create awareness on some treatment and procedures available in Ghana that some doctors do not know about.

The treatments, he said, “have been on the market for a while in order countries, but Ghana is now waking up to them due to human resource issues and equipment.”

He said the Society was looking forward to improving upon what was done last year in terms of content and attendance.

He believes this year’s conference which is the second will build on what happened in last year’s programme.

According to him, people living with liver cancers were not able to access help, but things have changed, adding, “the definite way of managing someone with a liver cancer is to transplant and change the liver which is not readily available in Ghana.”

“With the help of Interventional radiology, a microwave tumor ablation can be used to burn the tumor in the liver among other techniques. This we do to improve the quality of lives for this person like that,” Dr Sarkodie said.

Touching on Interventional radiology, he said: “treatments are now first-line care for a wide variety of conditions and it has become important that patients and the public become aware of these life-saving and life-changing options.”

Interventional radiology treatments are minimally invasive and image-guided procedures that do not involve the cutting of the body.

It offers less risk; less pain and less recovery time compared to the conventional surgical operation and is fast becoming the order of the day.

Ghana and the world as a whole have lost some of its human resources due to unavailability of such procedures in the past.

Some have even lost their limbs to diabetic related issues because amputating their legs were the only option available and patients and their families have had to live with the pain.

Dr Sarkodie is on a mission to educate and engage the public about these procedures, he said knowledge about the procedure was still low in the country and added that a lot of awareness needed to be created about it.

The Mayo Clinic doctors who are expected to be in town for three to four days together with Dr Sarkodie and some other doctors will be attending to cases at the Korle-Be Teaching hospital within the period.