New hope for stroke victims

An amazing stroke treatment will become available to thousands of people on the NHS. Mechanical thrombectomies are used to remove blood clots in the brains of patients who have had acute ischaemic strokes.

The procedure involves feeding a wire up through the body, usually from the groin area, where a wire mesh tube then catches the clot so that it can be dragged out, and blood flow is restored – limiting the damage to the brain. If used quickly enough, the procedure is more effective at unblocking arteries than blood-thinning drugs and greatly improves patients’ chances of making a full recovery. At the moment, thrombectomies are offered in only a handful of hospitals, but there are plans to expand their availability to 24 specialist centres, starting this year. Eventually, 8,000 stroke patients a year could be treated with thrombectomies.