Canadian-led research on a procedure to remove blood clots could be a game changer in stroke treatment.
Blood clots are characteristic of strokes, like the one that well-known technology expert Carmi Levy of Voices.com survived.
"It has fundamentally changed the way I live," he says. "It forces you to realize that everything you have can be taken away, just in an absolute instant."
An injury to his carotid artery in a biking accident produced clots that went into his brain.
"Once I kind of put two and two and two together - paralysis on the right side, non-verbal - I knew instantaneously I was having a stroke."
And while his case is rare, strokes are not. Every 10 minutes one person in Canada has a stroke.
While advances in medical technology mean fewer people are dying, the troubling fact remains a growing number of younger Canadians are experiencing the condition.
But new Canadian research is offering hope through a new clot retrieval process called endovascular treatment.
London was one of 22 test sites for the procedure under the direction of neurologist Dr. Jennifer Mandzia.
She says, "85 per cent of patients who have a stroke are the blockage type, within that that's about 30 per cent that have a clot in the artery that we could go in and retrieve that clot."
With the procedure, positive outcomes increased from 30 per cent to 50 per cent.
The mortality rate dropped from two in 10 patients receiving standard therapy to one in 10 - a 50 per cent reduction with endovascular treatment.
"I believe it is a game changer. This was a study, so we have to replicate this in real life, but I think it's one of the biggest advances we've had in stroke care in the last 20 years," Mandzia says.
Levy is now in good health and sharing his story, and his gratitude for advances in stroke technology.
"I can't say enough that I'm living proof that technology makes a massive difference."
