Over the years, interventional radiology has developed many effective
and less invasive procedures. As the number and types of interven- tions
increase, radiologists are becoming more and more involved in clinical
patient care. This includes pre-interventional patient workup,
sophisticated medical therapy and monitoring during interventions,
regular inpatient rounds and complete follow-up management. Therefore
interventional radiologists are faced with a broad spectrum of clinical
and pharmacological questions. Adjunctive medical therapy should
increase the patient's comfort, should improve the success rates, and
should further reduce the risks of the procedures. In order to fulfill
our responsibility to the patients, a profound knowledge of certain
drugs is indispensable. This in- cludes, for example, sedatives,
analgesics, cardiovascular drugs and agents to prevent infections,
thromboembolic complications or restenoses. Moreover, a good monitoring
system during complex procedures will increase the safety of
radiological interventions. These topics and several more have been
presented and discussed during an international symposium in Basel,
Switzerland, in January 1992. It is the benefit of the authors, that all
these results could be published shortly after the event. Connected with
our thanks to all the co-workers the editors hope to find this
publication assisting an increasing number of safe interventions.
