A recent study out shows that treatment now available to address the worst strokes actually is saving and bettering lives but notes there is still a ways to go before it will be offered broadly throughout the city. NY1's Erin Billups filed the following report.
A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine says a new stroke treatment available is proven to help patients with the worst kind of strokes, shaving precious minutes and even hours off of response times.
"My neighbor, she recognized that I was having a stroke and she called the ambulance. I was drooling at the mouth, and that my speech wasn't clear," says Maurice McConnell, a stroke patient.
McConnell had a large clot preventing blood flow to the right side of his brain. Because he was on blood thinners the staff at Brookdale Hospital realized they couldn't treat him, so they transferred him to Lutheran Medical Center, one of three Advanced Comprehensive Stroke Centers in the city - a Joint Commission designation.
"We've refined the process down to where we're trying very hard to bring these patients, from the time they hit the door to the time they're on our table to 90 minutes," explains Lutheran Medical Center Director of Interventional Neuroradiology Dr. Jeffrey Farkas.
"They saved my life. I'm very grateful," says McConnell.
On top of using the traditional stroke treatment - TPA - a medicine that helps dissolve clots, for the most extreme cases, they weave a catheter up through an artery in the groin to the clot in the brain and suck it out. Lutheran's stroke team has done the procedure on over 100 patients and are glad it's finally being recognized through the study as an effective and necessary alternative or addition to TPA.
"It showed not only could you open up blood vessels better, faster, which is very important. But also that the result was that the patients did better at three months or onwards," says Dr. Salman Azhar, Chairman of Neurology and Director of the Lutheran Stroke Program at Lutheran Medical Center.
And while the Empire State is a leader when it comes to stroke care the team at Lutheran says more city hospitals need the teams in place and equipment to perform the intervention.
"The system is not set up that every hospital needs to be able to do that, but you have to have enough hospitals in the boroughs so that patients can get to this treatment quickly," says Dr. Azhar.
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Catheter Stroke Treatment Can Fastrack Recovery, Study Finds