Untreated blood clots can cause several serious health conditions like pulmonary embolism [PE] or cardiac arrest. Knowing your body and signs of a clot is critical to receiving immediate care. Knowing that something was off with her son is how Renee Brown was able to get her child the care he needed.
“He was 17 and played varsity football with his dad as the coach,” said Brown. “He was short of breath and his back was hurting. At a game, I could tell something wasn’t right. There was swelling in his right leg, and we thought he had gotten hit during the game.”
When Cole did not improve, he was taken for a CT scan and diagnosed with a blood clot.
An interventional radiology [IR] physician, specializing in artery and vein treatment, chose to break up the clot with medication delivered through a catheter rather than surgery. They found Cole had been living with the clot for some time and it had hardened and was more challenging to break up.
During treatment, Cole’s care team discovered he was missing a vein that feeds blood to other veins and the heart. The vein with the clot, the Azygous vein, had been compensating for this missing vein. Cole’s care team speculated that this vein’s extra work to keep up blood flow may have caused the clot to develop.
Blood clots like Cole’s can develop at any age. Another young man affected by a blood clot is Deveraux Hubbard II. Hubbard was a 19-year-old from Peoria who died in 2013 from a pulmonary embolism caused by a blood clot. In his honor, Hubbard’s parents created the Deveraux Hubbard II Foundation. They're dedicated to raising public awareness about the risks of blood clots and clotting disorders.
“His [Hubbard’s] parents came to speak with Cole,” said Brown. “Their son was short of breath, too, and they thought he had the flu. They do a walk every year to promote pulmonary embolism and deep vein thrombosis awareness. They’re involved in the African American community here, educating on symptoms and what to recognize. Everybody waits, and I think that’s the problem. If it doesn’t seem right, don’t wait.”
Surya Chaturvedula, MD, is an interventional cardiologist who provides cardiovascular care at Carle Health.
“The first step in treatment of patients presenting with pulmonary embolism is risk assessment,” Dr. Chaturvedula said. “Risk assessment can be rapidly performed considering the patient's age, stability as determined by their vitals, location, and burden of the blood clot besides their underlying chronic medical conditions.”
Historically, high-risk PE patients were treated with systemic thrombolytic, or clot buster therapy, to dissolve the clot, but this therapy also comes with a risk of causing bleeding, which can sometimes be fatal.
“Surgical thrombectomy is of historical interest and rarely pursued in the current era due to the associated morbidity and mortality,” Dr. Chaturvedula said. “Patients who experienced prior head bleeding, a recent stroke, active bleeding, or previous major trauma, brain and spine injuries are not candidates for systemic thrombolysis.”
Low and intermediate risk patients typically receive blood thinners initially, which is the standard of care. In the event of clinical deterioration, novel evidence-based treatments could be employed rather than committing them to systemic thrombolytics.
“Catheter-based therapies are safe, effective, and targeted approaches. Catheter directed thrombolysis [CDT] is aimed at dissolving clots with a locally delivered clot buster,” Dr. Chaturvedula said. “Such direct therapy enables use of a lower dose of thrombolytic, reducing risk of systemic bleeding when compared to a systemic thrombolytic. Another option is mechanical thrombectomy which uses specialized catheters to fragment and rapidly extract a clot or clots from lung arteries and chambers of the heart when the clot is in transit.”
Cole spent two weeks in the intensive care unit receiving treatment to break up the clot. His care team considered putting Cole on a ventilator to make treatments easier on his body. Brown credits her son’s involvement with football for catching the symptoms.
“Cole might have been born with the clot, or clotted through the years, and we didn’t know,” said Brown. Signs of a clot often include chest tightness or difficulty breathing, coughing blood and pain.
“If you know your person and you know it’s not normal, get it checked out,” said Brown. “Pain in the calf is not normal unless there’s an injury there. And clots can travel to the heart or brain. Cole’s [blood clot] traveled to his lung. If they’re big enough, you can die. Dr. Chaturvedula has a procedure to take it out, but you have to recognize it before it goes somewhere lethal.”
For more information about DVT and PE treatments at Carle Health, visit Carle.org. Test your knowledge of blood clots and venous thromboembolism (VTE) with this online quiz.
“He was 17 and played varsity football with his dad as the coach,” said Brown. “He was short of breath and his back was hurting. At a game, I could tell something wasn’t right. There was swelling in his right leg, and we thought he had gotten hit during the game.”
When Cole did not improve, he was taken for a CT scan and diagnosed with a blood clot.
An interventional radiology [IR] physician, specializing in artery and vein treatment, chose to break up the clot with medication delivered through a catheter rather than surgery. They found Cole had been living with the clot for some time and it had hardened and was more challenging to break up.
During treatment, Cole’s care team discovered he was missing a vein that feeds blood to other veins and the heart. The vein with the clot, the Azygous vein, had been compensating for this missing vein. Cole’s care team speculated that this vein’s extra work to keep up blood flow may have caused the clot to develop.
Blood clots like Cole’s can develop at any age. Another young man affected by a blood clot is Deveraux Hubbard II. Hubbard was a 19-year-old from Peoria who died in 2013 from a pulmonary embolism caused by a blood clot. In his honor, Hubbard’s parents created the Deveraux Hubbard II Foundation. They're dedicated to raising public awareness about the risks of blood clots and clotting disorders.“His [Hubbard’s] parents came to speak with Cole,” said Brown. “Their son was short of breath, too, and they thought he had the flu. They do a walk every year to promote pulmonary embolism and deep vein thrombosis awareness. They’re involved in the African American community here, educating on symptoms and what to recognize. Everybody waits, and I think that’s the problem. If it doesn’t seem right, don’t wait.”
Surya Chaturvedula, MD, is an interventional cardiologist who provides cardiovascular care at Carle Health.
“The first step in treatment of patients presenting with pulmonary embolism is risk assessment,” Dr. Chaturvedula said. “Risk assessment can be rapidly performed considering the patient's age, stability as determined by their vitals, location, and burden of the blood clot besides their underlying chronic medical conditions.”
Historically, high-risk PE patients were treated with systemic thrombolytic, or clot buster therapy, to dissolve the clot, but this therapy also comes with a risk of causing bleeding, which can sometimes be fatal.
“Surgical thrombectomy is of historical interest and rarely pursued in the current era due to the associated morbidity and mortality,” Dr. Chaturvedula said. “Patients who experienced prior head bleeding, a recent stroke, active bleeding, or previous major trauma, brain and spine injuries are not candidates for systemic thrombolysis.”
Low and intermediate risk patients typically receive blood thinners initially, which is the standard of care. In the event of clinical deterioration, novel evidence-based treatments could be employed rather than committing them to systemic thrombolytics.
“Catheter-based therapies are safe, effective, and targeted approaches. Catheter directed thrombolysis [CDT] is aimed at dissolving clots with a locally delivered clot buster,” Dr. Chaturvedula said. “Such direct therapy enables use of a lower dose of thrombolytic, reducing risk of systemic bleeding when compared to a systemic thrombolytic. Another option is mechanical thrombectomy which uses specialized catheters to fragment and rapidly extract a clot or clots from lung arteries and chambers of the heart when the clot is in transit.”
Cole spent two weeks in the intensive care unit receiving treatment to break up the clot. His care team considered putting Cole on a ventilator to make treatments easier on his body. Brown credits her son’s involvement with football for catching the symptoms.
“Cole might have been born with the clot, or clotted through the years, and we didn’t know,” said Brown. Signs of a clot often include chest tightness or difficulty breathing, coughing blood and pain.
“If you know your person and you know it’s not normal, get it checked out,” said Brown. “Pain in the calf is not normal unless there’s an injury there. And clots can travel to the heart or brain. Cole’s [blood clot] traveled to his lung. If they’re big enough, you can die. Dr. Chaturvedula has a procedure to take it out, but you have to recognize it before it goes somewhere lethal.”
For more information about DVT and PE treatments at Carle Health, visit Carle.org. Test your knowledge of blood clots and venous thromboembolism (VTE) with this online quiz.
Categories: Staying Healthy
Tags: Blood, Brain, Clot, Heart, Lungs, Thrombectomy, Thrombosis, Vascular, Vein, Venous