LONDON: Using small nets to extract blood clots from patients' brains instead of a coil may improve their recovery, two new studies have claimed. The latest methods involve a tiny wire cage instead of a coil. This pushes the clot up against the walls of the artery and enmeshes the clot in the wires, allowing doctors to pull the clot back out of the groin.
Two similar devices were compared with the current coil methods. One trial of 113 patients showed 58% had good brain function after three months, compared with 33% of those treated with the coil method, as well as a lower death rate.
Clots block blood vessels, starving parts of the brain of oxygen, which leads to symptoms such as paralysis and loss of speech. Two studies, presented in the Lancet medical journal, suggest extracting clots with nets could improve recovery, the BBC reported. There are already techniques for reopening blocked blood vessels in people's brains.
Some patients will be given "clot-busting" drugs, but this needs to be in the hours just after the stroke and is not suitable for everyone.
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