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Researchers are reporting groundbreaking success with a new blood clot treatment designed to help patients who have suffered the most severe and disabling type of stroke. Each year, more than half a million Americans suffer strokes due to blood clots that block vessels in the brain. When those clots are small, they can typically be treated with tissue plasminogen activator (tPA), a protein that dissolves blood clots. But, in the nearly one-third to one-half of cases where the clots are present in large vessels, treatment has been elusive until now.
According to The New York Times, researchers in the Netherlands have published the findings of an encouraging study on the new treatment in The New England Journal of Medicine. The treatment involves using a small wire cage stent that is attached to the end of a catheter. The catheter is inserted into the patient’s groin and threaded through an artery to the brain. When the tip of the catheter finds the clot, the stent grabs the clot allowing the surgeon to safely pull it out. One in three stroke patients in the study who underwent the procedure were able to take care of themselves after their stroke vs. one in five patients who used tPA alone to treat their clots.
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