For many years, progress in treating one of the leading causes of death and disability in Americans, stroke, has been negligible.
But which will soon change with a groundbreaking procedure called endovascular thrombectomy.
Over in the US 795,000 people have a stroke every 12 months. The implications of the disease include long-term disability and, for many individuals over 65, limited mobility.
About 87% of strokes are ischemic strokes, which occur when a vessel that supplies blood to the brain is blocked.
Intravascular thrombectomy involves the extraction of a clot through a long catheter using imaging. After the clot is removed, blood flows back to the brain.
Patients recuperate remarkably well if the procedure is finished quickly enough reported the Recent York Times magazine.
For instance, a 60-year-old who suffered a severe ischemic stroke who had surgery was discharged days later – as an alternative of weeks in the hospital and rehabilitation that took months.
According to the magazine, in the worst case scenario, the man could die or face everlasting immobilization and the use of a feeding tube.
That is what makes endovascular thrombectomy a real advancement.
While doctors have long known the causes of stroke and its relationship to heart health, treatment has mainly focused on prevention, which has included the use of blood thinners and a give attention to lifestyle decisions.
A step in the right direction got here when drugs generally known as “clot busters” appeared on the scene in the Nineties, but they couldn’t cope with the biggest clots.
2015 clinical trial of the procedure at Foothills Medical Center in Calgary, Canada, was so successful that it was stopped because placing subjects in a control group was not considered ethical.
According to the magazine, this trial — together with 4 others — suggests astonishing results, including an almost three-fold increase in the chances of a complete cure.
Nonetheless, there are challenges. Time is of the essence in the procedure, and it stays to be seen whether a system may be put in place to get the patient to surgery quickly.
Lower than a fifth of the population in the United States has access to an intravascular thrombectomy inside quarter-hour, according to Stroke magazine.