AUSTIN, TX - (April 20, 2009) - Thanks to some quick thinking by a patient, effective teamwork and new medical technology, a 28-year-old Central Texas man is well on his way to recovery from a devastating, usually fatal ischemic stroke.
Sunday, April 5, Joe Shin was playing basketball, experienced classic stroke symptoms - weakness, dizziness and difficulty speaking - and asked his friends to call 9-1-1. He was quickly transported to the Emergency Department at Seton Medical Center Austin where emergency room physicians performed a specialized CT scan. It showed a large blood clot blocking the artery to his brain stem. He was immediately given the clot-busting drug, t-PA.
Dr. Neal Rutledge, Medical Director for Stroke at the Brain & Spine Center, a member of the Seton Family of Hospitals, then used a new device called the Penumbra System®. It uses a catheter-guided device to break up and remove the clot and restores blood flow back to the patient's brain.
Rutledge and other interventional neuroradiologists at the Brain & Spine Center received specialized training on the Penumbra System which allows them to use the device within the Seton Family of Hospitals.
"Fortunately for the patient, the Brain & Spine Center is one of a very few stroke programs in the country offering this treatment," explains Dr. Rutledge.
Dr. Rutledge says most patients do not get to the hospital in a timely manner for treatment. Knowing when to call 9-1-1 is key. He says to remember FAST: Is there asymmetric Facial weakness, Arm weakness, or difficulty Speaking? Then it's Time to call 9-1-1.
The treatment window for strokes using clot-busting drugs is three hours. Newer tools like the Penumbra System® expand that window to eight hours. Ongoing research trials at the Brain & Spine Center are extending that window to 14 hours.
"I had visions of being paralyzed for the rest of my life and didn't know what to think. I definitely didn't expect to walk out of the hospital just five days later," explains the patient.
Doctors at the Brain & Spine Center participated
in the initial clinical trials for the Penumbra device. It was
FDA-approved in January 2008.
Seton is proud to have four hospitals – the only hospitals in Central Texas - that have earned the