2 September 2016 - The U.S. FDA today allowed marketing of two Trevo clot retrieval devices as an initial therapy for strokes due to blood clots (ischemic) to reduce paralysis, speech difficulties and other stroke disabilities.

These devices should be used within six hours of symptom onset and only following treatment with a clot-dissolving drug (tissue plasminogen activator or t-PA), which needs to be given within three hours of symptom onset.

“This is the first time FDA has allowed the use of these devices alongside t-PA, which has the potential to help further reduce the devastating disabilities associated with strokes compared to the use of t-PA alone,” said Carlos Peña, Ph.D., director of the division of neurological and physical medicine devices at the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health. “Now health care providers and their patients have another tool for treating stroke and potentially preventing long-term disability.”

The Trevo device was first cleared by the FDA in 2012 to remove a blood clot and restore blood flow in stroke patients who could not receive t-PA or for those patients who did not respond to t-PA therapy. Today’s action expands the devices’ indication to a broader group of patients.

Read FDA press release