How is that even possible? Luck and the miracle of modern medicine!
59 year old Gerald Cunha felt pain in his leg and had a bit of swelling. He went to his internist and who put him on the blood thinner Coumadin, the standard treatment to dissolve what his doctor believed was a blood clot or deep vein thrombosis (DVT).
A couple of days later his leg blew up to three times its normal size.
The newest technology - EKOS Ultrasound which delivers clot busting drugs with an ultrasound-enhanced delivery system, could reduce the amount of drugs needed to break up dangerous blood clots in the legs and pelvis. Ultrasound catheters significantly reduce the amount of time it takes to dissolve blood clots and could help improve outcomes for victims of deep vein thrombosis, or DVT, according to new research. Blood clots are often treated through intravenous infusion of drugs, but the process of
dissolving the clot can take up to 48 hours. Longer infusion times increase the risk of life-threatening bleeding elsewhere in the body, particularly in the brain.The EKOS Ultrasound was used to detect a massive blood clot in the patients leg which started behind his knee and went up to his belly button. A clot this size is extremely rare. The most effective way to treat it was to administer clot busting medication to dissolve the clot. Instead of taking medication, blood thinners, for several months hoping the clot will dissolve, the EKOS allows doctors to drip TPA (clot busting medicine) right into the vein, directly onto the clot dissolving it like an ice cube melting. This treatment was performed for 3 consecutive days in order to dissolve a clot so large.
The patient's vascular specialist says, had this not been done in time he would have been permanently disabled or could have died from a pulmonary embolism. In fact, the patient was so nervous prior to the clot busting meds, he put his affairs in order for fear that a piece of the clot could travel to his lungs and be fatal.
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