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Signs of a potentially fatal blood clot are shortness of breath, chest pain, acute anxiety, dizziness or passing out, and rapid heart rate.
MUSC HEALTH OFFERS LIFE-SAVING BLOOD CLOT PROCEDURE A pulmonary embolism is a condition in which one or more arteries in the lungs become blocked by a blood clot. The clot, or embolus, can form in a matter of hours and travel through a vein in the leg to the lung, creating a life-threatening condition. If not treated, between 25 and 30 percent of patients can die; the mortality rate drops to 8 percent if patients are treated effectively, says Dr. Abdallah Kamouh, director of cardiology at MUSC Health Florence Medical Center.
Dr. Abdallah Kamouh
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Kamouh, an interventional cardiologist, was among the first to treat patients in the Pee Dee region using a largeBore pulmonary aspiration thrombectomy (PT), an advanced procedure technique removing the clot from the lung arteries. He used PT to treat patients with large clot burden in shock status, with rapidly
August 2022
worsening respiratory conditions, who are not able to be treated or who have not responded to the clotbusting drug tPA. In a pulmonary thrombectomy, surgeons insert a large, hollow catheter into a vein in the patient’s leg and, using guided imaging, thread it up throughout the right side of the heart into the lung arteries to suction out the clot. While suctioning the clot, most of the blood will be filtered and returned back to the patient. A large amount of well-formed clots is usually removed during the procedure, and imaging will confirm significant improvement of blood flow to the lungs. “The treatment can be challenging to perform, but life-saving for patients. Pulmonary thrombectomy has shown to improve the patient’s clinical symptoms significantly in the short and long term. it improves function in the right side of the heart, lowers blood pressure in the lungs, and in the short term can prevent a stay in the ICU and gets the patient out of the hospital quicker, says Kamouh.”
