The fishing net
A new device can quickly capture and remove the deadly blood clots that block arteries, says SUE ROBSON
ON A work trip to Washington last September, Jim McAuley should have been enjoying the sights on his days off. Instead he felt unusually weak and tired and just wanted to rest.
Back home, the 58- year- old university professor from Holmbridge, Yorkshire, saw his GP, who took his pulse and diagnosed atrial fibrillation ( AF), where the upper chambers of the heart beat abnormally fast. Jim’s pulse was 190 beats a minute instead of a normal 60- 100.
Normally cells in the heart’s right atrium act as a pacemaker, sending an electrical signal to make the chambers pump blood.
But in AF rogue signals can make the heart beat too quickly and irregularly, so the chambers do not have time to empty completely. Oxygenated blood is not pumped round the body properly, which is why Jim was feeling so tired.
If the chambers do not empty completely blood can pool and form clots. If a clot blocks the blood supply to the brain it can cause a stroke. More than 150,000 Britons have a stroke each year. AF increases the risk of having one fivefold. The GP prescribed digoxin to control Jim’s heart rate and referred him to a cardiologist. “I wasn’t unduly worried, since I was in good hands,” says Jim, who is married to Stephanie, 56, a lecturer.
“But talking to the cardiologist two weeks later I suddenly felt