For all progress In the treatment of brain victims in the last few decades, some concerns remained almost constant. In medicine, we like to say that “Time is the brain”, which means that every moment distant does not treat, the potential for long-term damage or death is escalated. In fact, every minute that the brain starts without blood flow, an average patient loses about 1.9 million neurons And about a week of independent living, experts say.
As the vast majority of moves are ischemic, with blood hustle blocks the flow of oxygen into the brain, cleans up that fast clotted is critical. This is true whether a clot is small or large and regardless of its density – but reliable removal of the most popular clots by mechanical means proved to be an elusive task.
Although these concerns, time and density, are not necessarily related, and substances – one reason suggests researchers, that the newly developed technology from Stanford University Holds the potential to reshape how patients with impact are treated.
The device, called Milli-Spinner, is tiny, a powerful rotating hollow tube cut and slit. In action, both laboratory and pork tests show the ability dramatically compact And reduce blood clots, making it easy to remove them quickly and efficiently – often on the first attempt.
“This has the potential to be the gift transmission,” says Greg Alberse, director Stanford University Stroke Center and a long-term expert in the field. “The results are likely to translate clinical trials well.”
Aaron Kehoe
Mechanical thrombectomy is a minimal invasive procedure for which blood clots are removed. Existing thrombectomy methods, which include aspiration clots over the catheter or try to grab and remove them through stent They are not designed primarily to reduce the size of clots in the blood. Milli-Spinner seems to do it so routinely – and very quickly, sometimes in seconds.
In a paper Posted 4. June in scientific journal NatureMilli-Spinner praised some bold wounds. In tests of flow models and pork experiments, the device of tromectomy, inserted through the catheter, showed the capacity to reduce clots up to 95%. “For most cases, we were more than to double the efficiency of current technology” Regarding the opening of the artery, says Dr. Jeremi auxiliary wood, dr. Dr, the head of neuroimage and neuro-intervention on Stanford and co-author of the study.
It was placed close to clots, Milli-Spinner and shears to release the red blood cells, which was mostly unexpected in the laboratory, says Renee Zhao, held Milli-Stanner, said Milli-Stanford’s, told Nature Study.
“It was magic for us, because even after we saw the phenomenon, it was not very easy to understand the working mechanism,” says Zhao Happiness.
The fibrin core is still firmly tied around Milli-Spinner, but now it is dramatically smaller than before and easily removed. (Imagine put cotton candies in your hand, and then close the fist, “what is crazy, it will literally spin this thing in a small clot,” only sucks it in the cathech. “It’s incredibly fast.”
There are many things left, researchers say, including full trials for human human times. But if the results are even close to what was achieved in laboratory and pork work, the device could change the path of treatment for comprehensive, too – too seriously a medical issue.
The blows are The fifth leading cause of death In the US, with about 160,000 deaths annually among Almost 800,000 cases diagnosed annually. Rough nine in 10 strokes are ischemic or clot-connected. Patients with ischemic strokes are often treated with drugs that stifle clots such as TPA or thrombectomy (sometimes both), but mechanical techniques continue to meet failure.
In some cases, the clot is simply too big to extract the production of stent or aspiration, or it can be too adhered to the wall of the container. In others, because they are inserting, small bits can be discontinued during trying to find. The flow of blood can take them more into the brain, potentially to make the size of the shock greater or causing a new deficit, says heit.
“And aspiration and retripries for aspiration and stent have a high risk of generating fragmentation,” Zhao says. “Milli Spinner actually prevents this to happen,” at least in the laboratory.
Current thrombectomy devices successfully remove clots less than 50% of the time on the first attempt, and in about 15% of cases do not succeed at all, experts say. It is important because people in which the blockade is removed in the first attempt with thrombectomy Better clinical outcomes than those who need more passages.
“Results are much better than if you need two, three, four attempts to open everything,” says Maresh Jayaraman, Chairman of Diagnostic Shooting at Brown University Brown. “Obviously we need to know that (Milli-spinner) can be safe and effective in people. If it is, it has the potential to revolutionize how we think about the removal of blood clots from the brain.”
Zhao says she and her colleagues weren’t actually trying to solve this issue, at least not initially. He’d rather be an engineer head Millirobots-Tini, swivel devices based on origami that can be swimming with the bloodstream. It triggers external magnetic field, millirobots, who are still in development, can be able to deliver medicine To target the region in the body, it performs diagnostic tasks or maybe one day even to wear instruments or cameras.
Spinning millirobots generate “highly localized, very strong vacuuming,” Zhao says. “We thought, okay, can we use that suction to suck the clot? It was extremely simple – I mean, a very simple way of thinking.”
In the cerebral model of the artery in the laboratory, he says heit, Milli-Spinner is 100% efficient in clot removal in more than 500 attempts. The pig was renovated at least half of the blood flow to block blood vessels 90.3% of the time on the first attempt, almost twice as much average achieved aspiration. And it was almost fourfold better fully by opening the artery for the most difficult clots.
“I expect (the device) to be the change of the sea in technology for the treatment of acute patients with ischemic move,” heit says. “If blood clots are removed at high success in people, because they are in our experiments, which we expect to be the case, Milli-Spinner will save tens of thousands of life or more and significantly reduce disability in treated patients.”
Human clinical trials are the next step. The areas to watch, says Arthur Adam, an expert in the Center for Health Science in Tennessee, in the way human tissue affects the new method of thrombectomy and how the cells and debris are treated once millions.
“Human trials are essential, and sometimes show very different results from what we see in the early results,” says Adam.
However, the development looks promising. “It’s a very exciting new device, with great potential,” says Colin Dardin, Chairman of Radiology and Medical Recording on the Medicine of Virginia University. “If he performs in humans, as well as in these models, we will improve the rationalization rates – how often we open a blocked brain, heart or lungs, it will lead to better results in patients with patients, heart attack and pulmonary clothing.”
It can also be anterior end of technology only. Zhao and her colleagues think they will be unreasonable, a robotic version of Milli-Spinner will swim directly in blood vessels to treat blood clots, brained aneurysms, renal stones and other conditions. In the meantime, the team formed a company in California to continue clinical trials at Milli-spinner.
“Given the growing pool of the patient and this very promising technology, I think we can potentially save a lot of patient life,” Zhao says. “We want to see this technology in people – before, that’s better.”
