SIR Today

Each year SIR Foundation honors an individual who, through exceptional generosity and inspiring others to give, demonstrates outstanding commitment to SIR Foundation. This year’s award winner is Barry T. Katzen, MD, FSIR.

Dr. Katzen is the founder and chief medical executive emeritus of the Miami Cardiac and Vascular Institute, a system-wide center of excellence that is part of Baptist Health South Florida, the largest health system in South Florida. He is a professor in the Department of Cardiovascular Services and in the Department of Biomedical Engineering in the College of Engineering and Computing Science at the Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine, Florida International University.

A pioneer of interventional radiology, Dr. Katzen has served as a national site principal investigator for many clinical trials in the study of aneurysms, carotid artery disease and peripheral vascular disease and has been involved in the development of numerous devices for less invasive vascular therapy, such as percutaneous transluminal angioplasty and peripheral thrombolysis for vascular disease, and the first intravascular stent. He is a past president of SIR as well as the Peripheral Vascular Section of the American Heart Association.

Dr. Katzen spoke with SIR Today about the origins of IR, his passion for research and how IR can position itself as a leader in healthcare.

You have been involved with SIR since the beginning. What has sustained your passion for the work?

Barry T. Katzen, MD, FSIR: When I started my medical career, IR didn't exist. I was very fortunate to be part of a group of people who ultimately wound up leading to the creation of our specialty. That group had several things in common: most importantly, we were all passionate about a movement toward less invasive solutions. Many of us realized that while we could be doing these procedures and pioneering new approaches to the delivery of healthcare, if we didn't organize ourselves into a specialty, we would never be able to sustain or create meaningful solutions. And so, the formation of our society and the creation of organized interventional radiology became important for the sustainability of the discipline.
This meant creating an organization, a journal, leadership, education opportunities, and all the pieces that are now part of SIR.

You have been named the 2026 Philanthropy Award Winner. What was your reaction when notified of the award?

Dr. Katzen: I was flattered, but to be honest, I generally don’t like getting a lot of personal attention. I would have been happy to give a talk about the value of the SIR Foundation, without recognition. But I view this as an opportunity to champion the goals of SIR Foundation and share how important it is to support them.

Can you tell us why it is so important for you to support the SIR Foundation?

Dr. Katzen: In addition to the formation of society, we knew that for the sustainability of the specialty, research was really important and so we created the foundation. SIR Foundation has been an integral part to how we sustain our specialty, because what differentiates IR from almost every other discipline is our commitment to innovation and change. We understand that we need to continue creating new solutions that improve the status and delivery of health care. And the way that's done is not just through anecdotally sharing experiences, but by creating the research and data to support our experiences.

In today's world, it’s important to have thorough research that documents the value of the procedures being created and documents that value in the context of clinical patient care. And that takes money, resources and organized research to be able to do.

The level to which procedures are accepted by the medical community is directly dependent on the resources we deploy for clinical research in these areas. Uterine fibroid embolization is a good example of this. In my opinion, it is more important than ever that SIR and SIR Foundation have the resources to support research and data collection, and those resources must come from the community. And nowadays, with government support for research diminishing, it’s more important than ever that we, as a specialty, have the resources to conduct that research.

You mentioned UFE as an area of success. Is there another area you feel could be the next IR success story?

Dr. Katzen: Picking one would be difficult, given the breath of what IR is today. We are involved from everything to critical limb ischemia to cancer. There has also been a rapid explosion in treatments for venous disease, especially pelvic pain syndrome. But truthfully, almost all areas can benefit from evidence-based data. 

You have a long history of research. Are there any research areas that are of particular interest to you?

Dr. Katzen: One of the areas that's been of interest to me is in the area of peripheral arterial disease, where we don't have a lot of evidence regarding head-to-head trials comparing devices against each other. Because there are so many devices out there, an IR may have a choice of three to six different ways to treat a certain type of disease. I feel this is an area that demands answers, because there are a lot of competitive technologies that are quite expensive. So, what’s the best device? What’s the best approach? What’s the best type of therapy?

This ties into a larger area that I truly think could use further focus: proving what the most cost-effective therapy is in various situations. For example, with PAD therapy there are multiple choices, and there’s huge economic pressure to make the correct choice. Generally, technology is associated with the increasing cost of procedures, and I believe IR should take the lead on establishing what the most cost-effective solutions are.

Is there any message you have for those who may consider donating to SIR Foundation?

Dr. Katzen: I think people need to understand that the work done by the SIR Foundation is so important for their future careers. When you’re at the beginning of your career and perhaps have less resources, philanthropy is probably not front of mind. But it is still important to support the SIR Foundation, even with small donations.

Being part of what the SIR Foundation does is just as important as being a member of SIR.