Pulmonary embolism treatment effective

STANFORD, Calif., Oct. 29 (UPI) -- A U.S. interventional radiologist said few physicians are aware of a life-saving treatment for pulmonary embolism.

Dr. William Kuo enlisted colleagues at California's Stanford University School of Medicine to help him conduct a meta-analysis of the treatment -- catheter-directed therapy or catheter-directed thrombolysis -- that involved 594 patients in 18 countries treated between 1990 and 2008.

The study, published in Journal of Vascular and Interventional Radiology, found the procedure was life saving in 86.5 percent of the cases studied and had only a 2.4 percent chance of major complications.

"Modern catheter-directed therapy is a relatively safe and effective treatment for acute massive pulmonary embolism and should be considered as a first-line treatment," the study authors said in a statement.

Kuo said he will never forget the night three years ago when he convinced skeptical intensive care unit staff to let him try saving a dying patient by using X-rays to guide a catheter -- a thin plastic tube -- through a small neck incision to blood clots within the lungs. This allowed direct targeting of clot-busting medicine and mechanically breaking up and suctioning out clots, Kuo said.