CHI Mercy Medical Using New Advanced Blood Clot Removal Device

The Shaw Heart Cath Lab team at CHI Mercy Medical has quickly become one of the most experienced teams on clot removal with a device called a flowtriever. When extensive blood clots develop in the legs, the clot can move to the heart and into the lungs. This causes up to 100,000 deaths per year according to the American Heart Association. This accumulation of blood clots in the heart and lungs is called pulmonary embolism which will affect about 370,000 people in the United States and about 857,000 people will be affected by it’s precursor, Deep Vein Thrombosis. "That's when you get in a lot of trouble,” Shaw Heart Center specialist, Dr. Chuck McGlade said. “900,000 people get it per year in the United States. One-quarter of them die instantly. 30% will die within the first month of having it. It is often a significant risk factor for people in the hospital." This syndrome is most commonly provoked by immobility - such as long hours at a desk job or recent surgery, long car rides - smoking, or birth control. Symptoms include shortness of breath, anxiety, or passing out. When someone comes into the emergency room with these symptoms and the staff suspect pulmonary embolism, the patient gets a CT scan and the team evaluates the amount of clot in the arteries in the lungs and the effect on the heart. "The heart may have difficulty getting blood flow past the clot and this extra burden on the heart may make it enlarge,” McGlade said. “We will treat patients immediately if they are unstable - for example, having trouble maintaining their blood pressure.” The Shaw Heart Cath Lab team located a clot in a patient who already had clots in both lungs and when the team looked at the heart, there was another clot waiting to migrate to the lungs. "If that had happened, this patient would have surely died,” McGlade said. They were able to remove the clot in the heart with the flowtriever before it moved into the lungs. McGlade said the company that created the flowtriever said this is the first time in the Northwest this device has been used to remove a clot from the heart. This method of removing clots is rapidly gaining acceptance in the medical community. "To me, it's a huge advantage to be able to treat people rapidly,” McGlade said. “We have a better chance of being able to save people who are critically ill.” Just five months ago, the team was using the old way of treating this syndrome which involved dripping medicine into the lung to break up the clot. It had the potential to not work especially with older clot, required a stay in the Intensive Care Unit, and the medicine could cause bleeding elsewhere in the body. The new way uses a mechanical device with a tube then runs through the body to the clot and removes it by a form of vacuum suction. "It relieves pressure on the heart rapidly,” McGlade said. “It is also more effective in that it can remove both older and fresh clot, and often does not require an ICU stay.” There is also a new treatment for any residual clot that is in the leg veins. This is called the clottriever and can extract the remaining clot by using a mechanical basket-like device. By doing this, it reduces the risk of any further clot moving to the lungs as well as preserves the valves in the veins of the legs which allows them to function optimally. If valves are damaged, patients may suffer from long-term leg swelling and discomfort. The team has done about 7 cases in the last five months which makes the team at Mercy Medical Center one of the more experienced in the Western US. McGlade hopes to hire another partner so the hospital can have 24/7 care. This clearly is a new method of treatment that benefits patients and is locally available.