Is A Stent A Blood Clot Filter

1/20/2015

With deep vein thrombosis (DVT), blood clots form in the large veins deep within the legs, pelvis and sometimes in the arms. DVT strikes about ane in xx people over the course of a lifetime. Sometimes a blood clot may intermission free from a deep vein, every bit in diagram #3 here. If the blood jell makes its style into an artery in the lung, information technology is chosen a pulmonary embolism (PE). PE is life-threatening condition that can crusade heart failure. It is important to telephone call 911 if you have trouble breathing or if you are coughing up claret.

Deep vein thrombosis (DVT) occurs when a claret clot forms in a vein deep within your torso, usually in the legs or pelvis. When blood clots go stuck and accrue inside veins, they tin can damage the vein and interfere with the flow of blood dorsum to your heart. DVT can also cause the blood to pool inside your legs, causing pain and making information technology difficult to walk.

If a blood clot travels to the lung, it tin cause a dangerous condition chosen pulmonary embolism (PE). Blood clots in the deep veins can interruption free and travel to other parts of the body; a PE occurs when that blood clot travels through the middle and blocks menses to the eye. DVT tin increase your risk of heart assault and stroke, too. That'due south because in some people, these clots may get into the arterial system and block flow in arteries to the brain or centre.

Rise in Treating DVT with Angioplasty and Stenting

After many years of success and improvements in angioplasty and stenting to treat the arteries that supply the centre, legs and kidneys with blood, it is becoming more common to use these procedures to care for other conditions, such as DVT.

Although doctors and their patients usually begin handling of DVT by making lifestyle changes and taking blood-thinning medications, many patients have institute relief from their DVT symptoms afterwards treatment with angioplasty and stenting.

Angioplasty and Stenting in the Deep Veins

A doctor specializing in interventional procedures, such as an interventional cardiologist, uses a thin, flexible tube chosen a catheter to insert and open a pocket-size balloon in the blocked or narrowed vein to open it wider. A stent may also be inserted to keep the vein open after the airship is inflated.

A catheter can also be used to straight clot-dissolving medication directly to the clots that are causing the problem within the veins.

If your doctor is concerned about the blood clots breaking free from veins in your legs or pelvis, he or she may also recommend angioplasty to place filters within the major vein in the belly. The filter catches blood clots that could suspension free from leg or pelvic veins and potentially reach the heart and lungs where they can cause fifty-fifty more serious problems. (See the give-and-take below on "When DVT Becomes an Emergency.")

Click here to learn more about angioplasty and hither to run into how stents piece of work.

DVT Symptoms and Risk Factors

If have any of the following symptoms, you should see your doc and ask nearly DVT:

Swelling and pain in the legs or ankles, particularly when information technology is merely 1 side
Areas on your legs that are warm to the bear on
Pain while walking or soon afterwards stopping

When DVT Becomes an Emergency

Blood from veins deep within your body flow to the vena cava, a large vein deep in the belly that carries oxygen-depleted blood to the centre and lungs. When blood clots form in these deep veins, they have a direct route to the lungs if they break free. When a blood clot travels through the veins and reaches ane of your lungs, information technology'south can crusade a pulmonary embolism (PE) — a potentially life-threatening condition. All the flow through the center first has to exist pumped to the lungs to pick up oxygen before it is pumped to the rest of the torso. A PE stops that flow to the lungs. So the centre is then not able to pump claret to the rest of the body, dropping the claret force per unit area and robbing the trunk of oxygen.

Call 911 and seek immediate medical handling if you suddenly and without explanation:

Have trouble animate,
Feel precipitous pains in the chest, or
Cough upward claret or pinkish, foamy mucus

Other symptoms of pulmonary embolism include:

Anxiety
Unexplained heavy sweating
Feeling faint or lite-headed
Racing heart rate

These symptoms could also signal a center attack—but you lot won't know for sure until you go help. Whatsoever fourth dimension you have trouble breathing or call back yous might be having a heart attack, it is important to call 911.

Learn More

This website provides a comprehensive resources virtually leg vein problems, including varicose veins and spider veins. You tin larn more most the causes and symptoms of venous illness as well equally current tests and treatments hither in the SecondsCount Center on Leg Vein Bug.