August 26, 2012 Lawrence LeBlond for redOrbit.com Your Universe Online It seems everyone finds something useful in the social media game known as Facebook. Now doctors are using the social network in the diagnosis department. Doctors from the Mayo Clinic used Facebook in investigating the stroke of a 56-year-old woman, and published the findings from the study in the British Medical Journal: BMJ Case Reports. The patient, who had an ischemic stroke (due to reduced blood flow to the brain as a result of narrowed or blocked arteries), needed to have her neck opened up for treatment. There are two main causes for this type of blockage: one is trauma, which is more common in young people. The second is through risk factors such as diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and heart disease. However, the doctors could not find a history of any of these risk factors in the patient, nor could they find an association to trauma. But the doctors, led by Dr. Manoj Mittal, noticed the womans right eyelid was droopy and her right pupil was slightly smaller than the left. When asked if this was abnormal for her, neither her nor her husband were sure. These … Continue reading →

26 August 2012 Last updated at 08:38 ET By James Gallagher Health and science reporter, BBC News Using small nets to extract blood clots from patients' brains may be the future of stroke care, according to two studies. 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 Stroke Association said it was very excited by the treatment's potential. 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. Other techniques have been developed to extract the clot. Some procedures pass a tube up through the groin to the brain. There the wire passes through the clot, forming a coil on the far side and then pulling the clot out. However, this is far from routine practice. 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 … Continue reading →

Newswise Stroke is the fourth leading cause of death and a common cause of long-term disability in the United States, but doctors have very few proven treatment methods. Now a new device that mechanically removes stroke-causing clots from the brain is being hailed as a game-changer. In a recent clinical trial, the SOLITAIRE Flow Restoration Device dramatically outperformed the standard mechanical treatment. Findings from the trial, called SOLITAIRE With the Intention for Thrombectomy (SWIFT), are published online today in the journal The Lancet and will also appear in a later print edition of the journal. SOLITAIRE, which was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in March, is among an entirely new generation of devices designed to remove blood clots from blocked brain arteries in patients experiencing an ischemic stroke. It has a self-expanding, stent-like design, and once inserted into a blocked artery using a thin catheter tube, it compresses and traps the clot. The clot is then removed by withdrawing the device, reopening the blocked blood vessel. "This new device is significantly changing the way we can treat ischemic stroke," said the study's lead author, Dr. Jeffrey L. Saver, director of the UCLA Stroke Center and a professor … Continue reading →

Public release date: 26-Aug-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ] Contact: Juliette Merchant jmmerch@emory.edu 404-778-1503 Emory University Every 40 seconds, someone in the United States has a stroke, usually caused when a clot blocks an artery that supplies blood to the brain. Now the results of two multicenter studies published online in The Lancet on August 26 are giving physicians new innovative tools proven to better remove these clots that block blood flow. The TREVO 2 clinical trial, (Thrombectomy Revascularization of Large Vessel Occlusions in Acute Ischemic Stroke) showed that the Trevo Retriever, a clot-removal device, performed significantly better at restoring blood supply to the brain than the FDA approved predecessor Merci Retriever. The study, conducted at 16 U.S. sites and one in Spain, was led by neurointerventionalist Raul Nogueira, MD, professor of neurology at Emory University School of Medicine. Nogueira also served as a member of the steering committee for the SWIFT (Solitaire With the Intention For Thrombectomy) clinical trial, which tested the efficacy of the flow restoration device Solitaire compared to the Merci Retriever at 18 U.S. sites and one in France. "The results of our studies show these next-generation devices (e.g. stent-retrievers) are superior at achieving restoration … Continue reading →