"Fred Hutch Cancer Center" "Cures Start Here"

Robert Torrance (Torre) Andrews, MD

Provider

Robert Torrance (Torre) Andrews, MD

Physician, Fred Hutch
Clinical Professor, Department of Radiology, University of Washington School of Medicine

Specialty:

Radiology

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“It’s very common for me to start drawing pictures while I explain a procedure, and I appreciate when patients tell me they get what I am saying. I hope to bring people a level of understanding of treatment options they may not have had before.”

— Dr. Andrews

What brought you to interventional radiology as a specialty?

I was a medical student in the process of applying to obstetrics and gynecology residencies and did a rotation in radiology because I thought it would be helpful. It was at a time when there was a new technique for managing portal hypertension for liver disease that took things from a huge surgical operation and an extended stay in intensive care to a few hours — the TIPS procedure. I watched things quickly shift from this complicated and difficult surgery with a lot of risk to TIPS, which is done through a puncture, and I knew I wanted to be a part of a specialty that can be creative and change things that dramatically.

What do you value about your work?

I value that a lot of what I do has become everyday stuff. Where we used to have patients spend a week in the ICU, now they go home the next day. We have taken things that used to be life-threatening and converted them into what can sometimes be like having no procedure at all. For example, we can put a little needle into liver tumors, heat the tumor up and basically burn it away from the inside and send a patient home a couple hours later to heal.

Provider Background

Area of Clinical Practice
Interventional radiology, liver cancer, liver disease

I am an interventional radiologist who sees patients at Fred Hutch at UW Medical Center – Montlake and Fred Hutch at UW Medical Center – Northwest.

Interventional radiologists use image guidance to do minimally invasive surgeries, operating through small punctures. Imaging helps get our equipment to the right location, so our hands are in one place while we also control what we look at on the screen.

Diseases Treated

Liver Disease

Liver Tumors and Cancer

Languages

English

Education, Experience and Certifications

Undergraduate Degree
San Diego State University

Medical Degree
University of California San Diego School of Medicine

Residency
UCLA Health, Diagnostic Radiology

Fellowship
Johns Hopkins University, Angio and Interventional Radiology

Board Certification
Diagnostic Radiology, 1998; Interventional Radiology, 1998; American Board of Radiology

We make promising new treatments available to you through studies called clinical trials led by Fred Hutch physicians. Many of these trials at Fred Hutch have led to FDA-approved treatments and have improved standards of care globally. Together, you and your physician can decide if a study is right for you.

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Many of our Fred Hutch physicians conduct ongoing research to improve standards of patient care. Their work is evaluated by other physicians and selected for publication to the United States National Library of Medicine, the largest medical library in the world. See scientific papers this Fred Hutch physician has written.

View Dr. Andrews' Publications

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