Percutaneous pharmaco-mechanical thrombectomy using the FDA-approved Trellis-8 Peripheral Infusion System is a safe and highly effective treatment for upper and lower extremity DVT, according to research. "Percutaneous pharmaco-mechanical thrombectomy using the FDA-approved Trellis-8 Peripheral Infusion System is a safe and highly effective treatment for upper and lower extremity deep vein thrombosis (DVT), according to research presented Monday at the 33rd annual meeting of the Society of Interventional Radiology (SIR) in Washington, D.C.

The Trellis system is an advanced drug infusion catheter that enables targeted, image-guided delivery and dispersion of an anti-thrombolytic into the peripheral vasculature to break up and remove blood clots.

The device allows increased penetration of clot-dissolving drugs, Dr. Gerard J. O'Sullivan, interventional radiologist at University College Hospital, Galway, Ireland, told the conference.

He presented data from a voluntary, manufacturer-sponsored registry of procedures performed using the Trellis system in the treatment of 827 venous limbs in 771 patients whose average age was 53 years. Most of the clots were in the lower limbs.

Based on SIR's reporting standards, which define acute as 14 or fewer days, subacute as 15 to 28 days, and chronic as more than 28 days, the clinical presentation of the study clots was acute in 248 instances (30 per cent), acute on chronic in 360 (44 per cent), sub-acute in 87 (ten per cent), sub-acute on chronic in 89 (11 per cent) and chronic in 43 (five per cent).

Dr. O'Sullivan reported that combined grade II or III lysis (> 50 to 100 per cent thrombus removal) was achieved in 96.7 per cent of acute clots, 93.7 per cent of acute on chronic clots, 95.4 per cent of sub-acute, 88.7 per cent of sub-acute on chronic, and 90.7 per cent of chronic clots.

"Venous patency was established in all cases," he and colleagues note in meeting materials.

Tissue plasminogen activator, at an average dose of 6.0 milligrams, was the lytic delivered in 93 per cent of cases.

Adjunctive therapies such as angioplasty and/or stenting were employed in 77 per cent of the cases to treat underlying chronic vein narrowing and/or culprit lesions, they note. There were no reported bleeding complications in the acute follow-up period.

Summing up, Dr. O'Sullivan said pharmaco-mechanical clot removal is a "very significant advance in DVT treatment, which hasn't changed in more than 40 years."

"With the aid of the Trellis device, this interventional radiology procedure could really change the way DVT patients are treated and should become a standard of care."


Source: Reuters"