Declots with the Argon Cleaner Device

[Chris Beck]
Alright, so let's first go through a routine declot procedure. Sabeen, you want to start it out?

[Sabeen Dhand]
Yeah. What I do, which is now a little bit different than how I trained, is I get access towards the heart, integrate towards the heart, and I determine the clot burden by just going central and pulling back a five french end-hole catheter. Then through that catheter and through the clot burden, I mix Alteplase into the clot and usually I put some contrast in there too so I can see the actual clot on fluoro. Then, immediately, I use - in each case I use an orbital thrombectomy, mostly the Cleaner. I'll use that to make a clot milkshake, you can say, clot Alteplase milkshake while I still haven't pulled the arterial plug.

That allows the TPA to kind of sit and dwell and then about five minutes of doing the Cleaner, I'll get a retrograde access through the arterial anastomosis and pull the plug. Usually that really takes care of most of the clot. Then I'll address the critical lesions, whether there's a stenosis, unless I saw something really severe initially that would maybe hold up my clot.