HEALTH RESEARCH
Breakthrough Treatment
for Stroke Victims
By Darla Sitton
CBN News Producer
August 19, 2004
CBN.com
– (CBN News) - The FDA has approved a revolutionary new
treatment for stroke patients.
Heather Williams was only 28 when she was hit with a massive stroke.
She said, "I had no idea I was having a stroke. Honestly, I didn't
know what was going on."
Two hours into the stroke, Williams was trying to remember her name.
She could not move her leg, or her right arm.
Dr.Thomas Grobelny of St. Luke's Hospital in Kansas City said, "The
brain is dying because it doesn't have a blood flow, and we know the
blood is necessary to deliver oxygen to the brain."
Conventional clot-busting medications take hours to work, and may
not fully open a closed artery.
But Williams' clot was opened by a new device just approved by the
FDA : a tiny corkscrew that doctors threaded into a vein in her leg,
and then up through her body to the brain.
They twisted the screw into the blood clot and then gently tugged.
Grobelny said, "We used several passes, and on each pass we retrieved
tiny amounts of clot."
Within an hour, blood was once again coursing through her brain.
Marilyn Rymer, another M.D. at St. Lukes, added, "I've been
doing strokes for 25 years. This is the biggest breakthrough I have
seen."
Soon Williams began to speak. And two days later she was feeling
like herself again.
Williams remarked, "I feel wonderful. I'm so lucky to be alive."
The FDA expects the new treatment to greatly benefit the thousands
of Americans, who like Williams, are stricken with strokes every year.
NOTE: The "Mercy Retriever" corkscrew is only effective
on strokes caused by blood clots, and must be used within three hours
of the onset of the stroke.
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