New Edward stroke vs. strokes
September 11, 2009
By KATIE FOUTZ
Doctors in Naperville can now spot a stroke by creating a 3-D image of the brain -- and stop it by reaching through a patient's leg.
The advancement means more patients can avoid open brain surgery and go home sooner.
Edward Hospital unveiled its latest tools in brain treatment Thursday while introducing the Edward Neurosciences Institute. Edward runs the new program through a partnership with the Northwestern Medical Faculty Foundation.
Five doctors known as neurointerventionalists rotate to staff the program 24/7. The institute can handle eight or nine diagnostic cases and two to three interventions each day, said Jeffrey Miller, the institute's medical director and one of 300 neurointerventionalists in the nation.
The $5 million lab and equipment can take 360-degree images of the brain, allowing doctors to see the problem area in three dimensions, magnify the image and rotate it on-screen.
Then they can pull some new tools from their tool chest. The Merci device uses a tiny tube inserted into the lower body and a corkscrew at the end to retrieve the blood clot causing the stroke. This type of treatment has been available for four years at Central DuPage Hospital in Winfield, according to CDH spokeswoman Amy Jo Steinbruecker.
Another tool, the Penumbra device, breaks up the clot and briefly reverses blood flow to capture the pieces.
"It's like an intercranial Hoover sucking out the clot," Miller said.
The team and its tools are set up to stop and reverse the effects of stroke quickly because "time lost is brain lost," Miller said.
The institute is not just for stroke patients. Heart and cancer patients with neurological disorders can be treated there, too. Its first scheduled patient is a person who has lived with a slowly growing brain tumor for 10 years.
In the lab, doctors will cut off the tumor's blood flow, said neurosurgeon Michael Caron, associate medical director of Edward Neurosciences Institute. Then, "before it can recruit more blood cells," the tumor will be removed in an operating room, he said.
The institute allows Edward neurosurgeons to treat complicated cases locally instead of sending them to Chicago.
"You die of stroke, you die of cardiovascular disease, you die of cancer as you get old," Caron said. "Edward has addressed all of those."
Stroke stats:
- Stroke is the No. 1 cause of serious, long-term disability.
- A stroke occurs in the U.S. about every 40 seconds.
- Stroke affects women more often than men.
- The risk of stroke doubles every decade after age 55.
- 24 percent of patients with transient ischemic attack -- or "mini stroke" -- will die within one year.
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