Every year, approximately 15 million people worldwide have a stroke. Of these, nearly five million die and another five million are left permanently disabled. Fortunately, the prospects for preventing and treating stroke are far better today than even five years ago. Technologies such as the stent retriever are making huge strides in treating stroke, while insertable cardiac monitors are helping physicians detect atrial fibrillation in cryptogenic stroke patients, enabling them to provide treatment to potentially prevent a recurrent stroke.

New devices called stent retrievers, which effectively reverse strokes, have revolutionized the treatment of certain stroke patients, according to an article in the journal Expert Review of Neurotherapeutics.

“Stent retrievers are a major advance in acute ischemic stroke care and will have significant impact on the evolution of stroke systems of care,” according to the article by Loyola Medicine neurologists Rick Gill, MD and Michael J. Schneck, MD. Dr. Gill is the outgoing chief resident and Dr. Schneck is a professor in the Department of Neurology of Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine.

A stent retriever is a self-expanding mesh tube attached to a wire, which is guided through a catheter (thin tube). The endovascular specialist inserts the catheter in an artery in the groin and guides the catheter through various blood vessels all the way up to the brain.

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