WASHINGTON — It’s a tiny vacuum cleaner for the brain: A new treatment for stroke victims promises to suction out clogged arteries in hopes of stopping the brain attack before it does permanent harm.
Called Penumbra, the newly approved device is the latest in a series of inside-the-artery attempts to boost recovery from stroke, the nation’s No. 3 killer.
More than 700,000 Americans suffer a stroke each year, and more than 150,000 of them die. Survivors often face serious disability.
Most strokes occur when blood vessels feeding the brain become blocked. For those, the clot-busting drug TPA can help — but only if patients receive intravenous TPA within three hours of the first symptoms.
Yet fewer than 5 percent of stroke sufferers get TPA. And of those treated, it helps only about 30 percent.
Enter Penumbra, an option for patients who miss out on early care or if standard TPA treatment fails. Specialists push a tiny tube up a blood vessel into the brain until it reaches the clog. Just like a vacuum, it sucks up the clot to restore blood flow.
For the right patient, Penumbra can produce dramatic help, says Dr. Demetrius Lopes of Chicago’s Rush University Medical Center, one of two dozen hospitals that tested it.
The study’s full results will be presented next month at a meeting of the American Stroke Association.
