SIR 2024
Practice Development
Michael J. Sichlau, MD
founding partner
Vascular and Interventional Professionals, LLC
Financial relationships: Full list of relationships is listed on the CME information page.
Paul Gordon, MD
Cardiothoracic Surgeon
Thoracic Surgical Associates
Disclosure information not submitted.
Kevin Kovitz, MD, MBA
Interventional Pulmonologist
Chicago Chest Center
Disclosure information not submitted.
Elizabeth Storandt, BS
VIR Pulmonary Clinical Coordinator
Vascular And Interventional Professionals, LLC
Disclosure information not submitted.
Over 3 years, 201 patient encounters were seen. Median time from imaging abnormality to clinic evaluation, and clinic evaluation to tissue diagnosis were 50 days and 17 days, respectively. Relative to the 2 years prior to starting a multidisciplinary clinic, trans thoracic needle biopsy volume remained relatively flat, but EBUS and navigational bronchoscopy procedures increased. Thoracic surgical resections increased significantly. For every encounter in the multidisciplinary lung nodule clinic, 0.48 IR procedures, 0.37
IP procedures, and 0.16 surgeries were generated. This translates to 10.5 procedural RVU’s per encounter, and 2.3 diagnostic radiology RVU’s per encounter.
Conclusion:
A multidisciplinary approach to thoracic malignancy streamlined evaluation and management of patients with lung nodules and helped to grow procedural and diagnostic volume. Interventional radiologists with clinical capacity are positioned as the ideal specialists to coordinate multidisciplinary lung nodule management.