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new device saves life of woman suffering from covid-related blood clots
the device, called the indigo lightning cat12, was used for the first time in canada at the foothills medical centre
aug 20 2021
1 minute read
brenda crowell (l) speaks with interventional radiologist dr. jason wong at foothills hospital in calgary and is shown the indigo lightening cat12 on thursday, august 19, 2021. the new device was used on crowell to quickly extract blood clots from her lungs in may. the device used for the first time in canada saved crowell's life after she developed a blood clot caused by covid-19. jim wells/postmedia
jim wells/postmedia
the life of a calgary woman suffering from a covid-19-related blood clot was saved, after staff at the foothills medical centre used a new device for the first time in canada.
the device, called the indigo lightning cat12, was used to extract a pulmonary embolism from the lungs of brenda crowell.
crowell had been clinically dead for more than 30 minutes, alberta health services said in a news release, after blood clots led to that pulmonary embolism on may 6. she was rushed to foothills’ emergency department, where doctors in the pulmonary embolism response team were able to use the device — a catheter similar in size to a large drinking straw — to extract the embolism. it was the first such procedure in canada, ahs said.
interventional radiologist dr. jason wong performed the procedure called an embolectomy.
covid-19 can cause severe inflammation, which can trigger an individual’s clotting system, the wexner medical center at the ohio state university noted in an april 2021 article.
“it kind of makes sense that your body would say, ‘if i see an infection i need to be ready to clot.’ but when the infection is as widespread and inflammatory as covid-19, that tendency to clot can become dangerous,” said dr. matthew exline, medical director of the medical intensive-care unit at the ohio state wexner medical center.
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that inflammation, paired with the immobility caused by being sick, creates a near perfect environment for blood clots in legs and lungs, exline said.
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