Thrombectomy device for removal of arterial blockages through aspiration
A stroke disease occurs when blood flow of part of the brain stops, in case of more than a few seconds, the brain can not get blood and oxygen, causing permanent damage. According to WHO, more than 17M people die from cerebrovascular disease. Only in the U.S. affects more than 700000 Americans each year, causing 150000 deaths and remains the leading cause of disability in adults and the third leading cause of death. In Spain, strokes are the leading cause of death in women, one of the neurological diseases of greater social impact, with 130.000 new cases each year.
Ischemic stroke occurs when a blood vessel supplying blood to the brain is blocked by a blood clot. Treatments for such accidents can be divided in chemical and mechanical thrombectomy devices. The decision to develop a new device which allows effectively eliminate the presence of these clots, lies in the high percentage of population affected and the various risks found when performing an analysis of the situation today.
The purposes of any mechanical thrombectomy device can be summarized in effecting the removal of the clot formed inside of the artery and restoring blood flow from the artery. From recent years, numerous devices have been developed, many of them operating at the periphery of the vascular system, however, relatively few have been used in the cerebral vasculature. One of the main problems of these devices is that they can produce embolisms or breaks downstream of the arterial walls due to their moving parts.
As a result, there is a need to design a device based on aspiration, without moving parts, with a simple design, and that can act as an effective remover of blood clots without causing possible embolisms due to the breakage of the blood clot.
“ Simple, practical and effective”
Given the limitations in the use of the device described here, the existing market potential was estimated from three main areas:
This potential can be seen from the large number of thrombectomy devices developed in recent years, which shows the concern in the sector, the continuing need for innovation and the growing interest of the different laboratories
Contact GPR
Gregorio Romero
CITEF. Railway Technologies Investigation Center
e: gregorio.romero@upm.es
w:www.citef.industriales.upm.es
UPM contact
Innovation, Commercialization and Entrepreneurship Area
Centre of Support for Technological Innovation – UPM
e: innovacion.tecnologica@upm.es