Steven Reinberg HealthDay Reporter Posted: Wednesday, December 17, 2014, 12:00 PM
WEDNESDAY, Dec. 17, 2014 (HealthDay News) -- Using a stent to capture and remove a stroke-causing blood clot is safe and improves recovery, Dutch researchers report.
About one-third of patients who had the procedure -- called intraarterial treatment -- recovered from their stroke with only slight disability and were able to care for themselves, compared with just 19 percent of patients given regular care, the researchers found.
"We knew already that we can open up blocked vessels with the treatment, but now we have proof that patients have better outcomes, they actually benefit by being less disabled and less handicapped," said lead researcher Dr. Diederik Dippel, a neurologist at Erasmus M.C. University Medical Center in Rotterdam.
Dippel stressed that to be effective this treatment must be done in the first six hours after stroke symptoms start. And, the sooner the better.
Unlike stents used to open blocked heart arteries, which are left in place to keep the artery open, stents used in intraarterial treatment are removed, Dippel said.
During intraarterial treatment, a stent -- a tiny wire mesh sleeve -- is attached to a catheter and threaded through the artery blocked by the blood clot. The stent is expanded so it covers the clot, trapping it. Once the clot is enclosed in the stent, the stent is removed along with the clot, he explained.
Procedures such as this one always carry risks, but in this case the trial showed that the risks were outweighed by the benefits, Dippel said.
The results of the trial, largely funded by the Dutch Heart Foundation, were published online Dec. 17 in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Read more:
Stent Treatment May Lower Stroke Disability