New Device Helps Virtua Treat Blood Clots In Coronavirus Patients

Physicians in the Virtua Health System are using a new tool to treat pulmonary embolism, a life-threatening clot in the lungs, the health system announced.

The heart team at Virtua Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital is using a device called the FlowTriever, which uses a catheter to remove a clot from the lung arteries and the body, immediately restoring blood flow and a patient’s ability to breathe.

They recently used it to successfully remove a pulmonary embolism in a patient hospitalized with the coronavirus, according to the hospital. Doctors have found that people with the coronavirus have an increased risk of developing blood clots, but they don’t know why.

This includes small vessels, deep vein thromboses in the legs, clots in the lungs, and stroke-causing clots in cerebral arteries, according to a recent study. It happens despite patients being put on blood thinners. This type of clotting also doesn’t respond well to standard prevention methods and treatments, even those that use increased blood thinners.

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“Just as when we open a clogged artery in a person having a heart attack, using FlowTriever in a patient’s lung restores blood flow and results in rapid improvement,” said Ibrahim Moussa, an interventional cardiologist at Virtua Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital. “Performing this procedure through a catheter, we avoid open-chest surgery and long intensive care unit stays, as well as drugs that can increase bleeding risk.”

Inari Medical developed the FlowTriever, the first FDA-approved mechanical thrombectomy device purposely designed to treat pulmonary embolism. With the FlowTriever, a catheter is inserted through a vein in the groin area and threaded to the pulmonary arteries of the lungs. Suction is used to pull the clot out of the vessel and the body.

If the clot is adherent to the wall of the vessel, a tool on the tip of the catheter will bury into the clot and three self-expanding mesh discs will work to drag it out.

“This device offers us many advantages. We are able to remove large clots from large vessels, immediately restoring blood flow. We don’t have to use clot-busting thrombolytics, and since this is a minimally invasive, catheter-based procedure, we can better treat patients who are not candidates for open-chest surgery,” Moussa said.

Commonly, initial treatments for pulmonary embolism are blood thinners, like heparin and warfarin. Blood thinners will keep the clot from getting bigger and work well for smaller clots, but may or may not completely dissolve bigger clots.

Doctors also may use thrombolytics, or clot busters, in conjunction with ultrasound waves delivered through a catheter to break up a clot. However, thrombolytics, like blood thinners, increase the possibility of internal bleeding and may pose an unsafe risk to older patients, according to Moussa.

If the clot cannot be removed or treated with these methods, surgeons may perform open-chest surgery to remove it. This involves making a large incision down the center of the chest and through the breastbone to access the heart and lungs. A heart-lung machine is necessary for this type of procedure to take over the heart pumping and the lungs breathing.

“While sometimes necessary, open-chest surgery is traumatic and can require months to recover,” Moussa said. “FlowTriever will serve as a promising alternative, and we are pleased to provide this tool for our patients.”

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