A new life-saving tool is being used for the first time in the United States to treat stroke patients.

Doctors in Indiana were the first to perform the procedure.

“This is loaded into a catheter,” Goodman Campbell Brain and Spine Dr. Daniel Sahlein said.

Something so small is having a huge impact on stroke patients.

It is the EmboTrap II. Think of it as a rake pulling out a blood clot in a patient’s brain who’s actively having a stroke.

“When a vessel in the head is blocked, the brain is dying fairly rapidly, and so, we are racing the clock to save that brain tissue and restore flow to that brain,” Dr. Sahlein said.

The tiny tool was just approved to be used in the U.S.

And already, the Goodman Campbell Brain and Spine team has performed the first procedure in the U.S. at St. Vincent Health.

So, here’s how it works.

A self-expanding stent is connected to a wire. The stent opens up inside the clot and pulls the entire clot out of the brain.

A 15-to-20-minute process that limits the potential for some lifelong damage. In a before photo, you can clearly see how this vessel is clearly blocked. 

After the procedure, it flows.

“They come in with the inability to move, inability to speak or understand language,” Dr. Sahlein said. “After this kind of treatment, literally walk out of the hospital two days later.”

Dr. Sahlein says these are the most crucial symptoms to look out for.

Your face is twisted to one side, you can’t speak, or you can’t move one or both of your arms.

This tool is in place to help reverse those symptoms.

And unlike years ago when a stroke patient had to live with those symptoms, the EmboTrap II gives you a shot at a normal life. 

“A much greater percentage of patients will live independently at three months when they get this type of treatment versus those that do not,” Dr. Sahlein said.

The device was formally launched last week at a conference in San Francisco.

WHAT OTHERS ARE CLICKING ON:

>>MORE STORIES