Dr. Shashi Murthy, Interventional Radiology, explains a minimally invasive IR procedure for the treatment of chronic knee pain, and describes what a patient can expect before, during, and after a Genicular Artery Embolization.
Hi, everyone. My name is Doctor Shashi Murthy and I am an interventional radiologist. As an interventional radiologist, I perform minimally invasive procedures all through pinprick incisions using catheters and wires to reach any part of the body and treat a wide range of diseases. Today, we are going to be talking about genicular artery embolization or gae for short gae is a minimally invasive procedure designed to provide long term pain relief for patients with chronic knee pain, secondary to osteoarthritis. One in four patients are said to suffer from chronic knee pain. There are many treatments for chronic knee pain including physical therapy, steroid injections and the gold standard being a knee replacement. However, not all patients wish to undergo knee replacement surgery and some are not candidates for knee replacement due to other comorbidities for for these patients. Gae is an excellent alternative procedure. Gae involves reducing the blood flow to the lining of the knee known as the synovium. This reduction of synovial inflammation has been shown to improve knee pain from osteoarthritis. This procedure is performed on an outpatient basis, meaning you can go home the same day during the procedure, you'll receive both medication for sedation and local numbing medicine over the artery that will be accessed through this artery, catheters and wires are guided to access the blood supply to the painful knee. Once there contrast is injected to value regions with abnormal or high inflammation, these regions are treated with very small amount of particles which are like grains of sand to reduce the inflammation. After the inflammation is adequately reduced, all catheters and wires are removed and you're left with a small band-aid, overlying the access site. Most patients start to notice pain relief approximately two weeks after the procedure. While further research is needed, one study showed that average pain scores decrease from eight out of 10 to three out of 10 if adequate pain relief is not achieved repeat gae or other treatment options can be considered as undergoing a GAE does not exclude you from having any other procedure. So if you're between the ages of 4080 with moderate to severe knee pain, have local knee tenderness and have failed or are not interested in other treatment options, contact our clinic to be evaluated and discuss if GAE is a good option for you.
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