Stroke Therapy

Stroke Therapy

A stroke is a general term used to describe a condition when blood flow is interrupted to the brain.  This is caused by a blood clot that becomes lodged in an artery leading to the brain causing an interruption in blood flow.

Depending on the conditions of the stroke, an intra-arterial lysis therapy or thrombectomy can be used to restore blood flow.  Lysis therapy is the introduction of a clot dissolving agent called tPA to the area of the clot.  This tPA can be injected directly to the site of the clot using a microcatheter inserted into the patient’s middle cerebral artery from a common femoral artery approach in the groin.

There are also several other mechanical devices that can aspirate or dislodge or remove the clot.  These devices (Solitaire, Penumbra and Merci) can be deployed via catheter through the patient’s circulatory system.  The benefit of these mechanical thrombectomy devices is that they can remove the clot in a matter of minutes, where chemicals such as lysis therapy can take hours to dissolve the clot.  Advanced Radiology physicians were also the first in Nebraska to utilized the Solitaire, Penumbra and Merci devices.