SIR Foundation, Journal of Vascular and Interventional Radiology Announce Research Awards

JVIR Editor's Awards for 2011 Outstanding Clinical Research and Outstanding Laboratory Investigation Articles Presented During Society of Interventional Radiology's 37th Annual Scientific Meeting

SAN FRANCISCO, March 28, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Journal of Vascular and Interventional Radiology—the Society of Interventional Radiology's flagship publication—together with the SIR Foundation presented the 2011 JVIR Editor's Award for Outstanding Clinical Research Paper to Joao Pisco, M.D., Ph.D., and the honor for Outstanding Laboratory Investigation Paper to Hyun-Jung Yoon, M.D. The awards were presented during SIR's 37th Annual Scientific Meeting in San Francisco, Calif. The articles were selected after a careful review of all manuscripts published in 2011.

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Pisco, who is chief radiologist at Hospital Pulido Valente and director of interventional radiology at St. Louis Hospital, both in Lisbon, Portugal, received this year's award for his article, "Prostatic Arterial Embolization to Treat Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia." Yoon, who is with the department of radiology and the Research Institute of Radiology at Asan Medical Center, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea, is the principal author of "Role of IN-1233 in the Prevention of Neointimal Hyperplasia After Stent Placement in a Rat Artery Model."

"Dr. Pisco's paper embodied the hallmark of interventional radiologists to define vanguard therapies that, with the subsequent hard work of rigorous clinical research, can become the mainstay and mainstream," said Ziv J Haskal, M.D., FSIR, the journal's editor-in-chief. "Dr. Pisco's work is at the front of an exciting new such area, the nonsurgical treatment for symptomatic prostate enlargement—something that affects hundreds of thousands of men," Haskal said. "His findings regarding the safety and early efficacy of this treatment will, I predict, spur a tremendous amount of subsequent research and activity in this area," he added.

"Dr. Yoon's paper, a detailed exploration of a newer method for potentially reducing and preventing the tissue in-growth that plagues stents placed in most arteries, is an example of a good question, a solid experimental design, and carefully and methodically performed laboratory research to answer that question. Indeed, this in-growth was reduced within the stents in their experimental group," noted Haskal, a professor of radiology and surgery at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

Recipients of the 2011 JVIR Distinguished Reviewer Awards are Boris Nikolic, M.D., MBA, Albert Einstein Medical Center, Philadelphia, Pa.; Suresh Babu, FRCR, DR, Alexandra Health, Singapore; and Jose I. Bilbao, M.D., Ph.D., FSIR, Clinica Universitaria De Navarra, Pamplona, Spain. The 2011 JVIR Editor's Award for Distinguished Fellow Reviewers was presented to Nirmal Phulwani, M.D., University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, Ark., and Jay T. Morrow, M.D., Ph.D., Advanced Radiology Services, Grand Rapids, Mich.

More information about the Society of Interventional Radiology and the Journal of Vascular and Interventional Radiology can be found online at www.SIRweb.org and www.JVIR.org.

2011 JVIR Editor's Award for Outstanding Clinical Research Paper: "Prostatic Arterial Embolization to Treat Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia," Pisco J.M., Pinheiro L.C., Bihim T., Duarte M., Mendes J.R., Oliveira AG. JVIR—January 2011.

2011 JVIR Editor's Award for Outstanding Laboratory Paper: "Role of IN-1233 in the Prevention of Neointimal Hyperplasia After Stent Placement in a Rat Artery Model," H. Yoon, M.D.; H. Song, M.D.; J.H. Kim, M.D.; K.S. Hong, M.D.; Y.J. Kim, M.D.; H.G. Park, M.D., all department of radiology and Research Institute of Radiology, Asan Medical Center, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea; D.K. Kim, Ph.D., College of Pharmacy, Ph.D., Ewha Womans University, Seoul. JVIR—September 2011.

About the Society of Interventional Radiology Foundation
SIR Foundation is a scientific foundation dedicated to fostering research and education in interventional radiology for the purposes of advancing scientific knowledge, increasing the number of skilled investigators in interventional radiology and developing innovative therapies that lead to improved patient care and quality of life. Visit www.SIRFoundation.org.

About the Society of Interventional Radiology
Interventional radiologists are physicians who specialize in minimally invasive, targeted treatments. They offer the most in-depth knowledge of the least invasive treatments available coupled with diagnostic and clinical experience across all specialties. They use X-ray, MRI and other imaging to advance a catheter in the body, such as in an artery, to treat at the source of the disease internally. As the inventors of angioplasty and the catheter-delivered stent, which were first used in the legs to treat peripheral artery disease, interventional radiologists pioneered minimally invasive modern medicine. Today, interventional oncology is a growing specialty area of interventional radiology. Interventional radiologists can deliver treatments for cancer directly to the tumor without significant side effects or damage to nearby normal tissue.

Many conditions that once required surgery can be treated less invasively by interventional radiologists. Interventional radiology treatments offer less risk, less pain and less recovery time compared to open surgery. Visit www.SIRweb.org.

The Society of Interventional Radiology is holding its 37th Annual Scientific Meeting March 24–29 at Moscone Center, San Francisco, Calif. The theme of the meeting is "IR Evidence," chosen to reflect interventional radiology's gathering, presenting and discussing results of care-changing investigations.

SOURCE Society of Interventional Radiology