Vascular surgeons on the medical staff at Baylor Scott & White Heart and Vascular Hospital – Dallas perform a surgical procedure known as percutaneous mechanical thrombectomy. It involves inserting a guide wire through a sheath in the femoral vein, advancing the wire past the clot and passing a catheter over the wire to the blocked area. Antithrombotic drugs are administered through the catheter to dissolve any remaining clot fragments, and medical therapy is recommended for long-term anticoagulation following the procedure.
A related procedure to percutaneous mechanical thrombectomy is surgical venous thrombectomy, which is the removal of a deep vein clot by inserting a catheter through a small incision in the affected vein for patients with a severe blockage.