My name is Gulraiz Chaudry, and I’m an interventional radiologist, so my main role is in treatment of the vascular malformations, predominantly with things like sclerotherapy… I think it was an interest I developed during residency and then further in my fellowship. It was what actually attracted me to this hospital because it was a large vascular anomalies center, and so I chose to come here, because of the wealth of experience that was already here.
What vascular anomalies do you tend to work on?
We deal with everything, but the most common are the lymphatic and venous [malformations] so sclerotherapy is the majority of what we do. The AVMs are few and far between, and we don’t see many of those.
[Later] The hemangiomas we rarely have to deal with, only the rare types that are associated with heart failure or something like that. Our work is predominantly just with the malformations.
Is there a particular anomaly or group of anomalies that you specialize in?
The one I find most interesting are the large sac venous malformations particularly associated with a condition called blue rubber bleb nevus syndrome. These have been really challenging, because they have huge spaces which is very resistant to the kind of treatment we can provide. We’re relying on a liquid sclerosing agent causing a lot of inflammation, and that requires enough of the agent to be in a small enough space to get that response. We’re limited at the moment by what we have, so what I’m working on at the moment is to try and develop a new product that we can inject in that would take up a lot of space and then sclerose that, because otherwise the only other option is resection which is not an easy task in these patients.
What are some of the rewards and challenges of working with this population?
I think the best part is, especially as a radiologist, you’re dealing with a population that you see on a regular basis, you’re forming a long-term relationship. These are interesting and challenging conditions to treat… The challenging is when you know that the outcome, no matter how much you try, is not going to be optimal. This child will never be normal, will never look the same as any other child. Those are challenging, that they will have to live with potentially disfiguring or disabling conditions.