Smallest clot retriever extends endovascular thrombectomy to medium vessels
Rapid Medical has received CE mark approval for its Tigertriever 13 clot retriever, the smallest such device on the market which is designed to treat intracranial vessels between one and 2.5 millimeters.
The device gets the “13” in its name from its microcatheter’s soft distal outer diameter of 1.3 Fr, equivalent to about 0.43 mm. It is 83 percent smaller than any other commercially available stent retriever, according to Rapid Medical’s press release, and opens endovascular therapy to patients with medium vessel occlusions (MVOs).
“Tigertriever 13 is a very important addition to the ischemic stroke device market," René Chapot, MD, a German neurointerventionalist, said in the release. “For the first time ever, we have a tool that is dedicated to more distal occlusions.
“These occlusions can have a dramatic disabling effect on patients and until now there was little to be done for them. Using the Tigertriever 13 we were able to retrieve clots from an MVO that was not treatable until now.”
Up to 30 percent of ischemic stroke patients experience an MVO, according to Rapid Medical, which plans to launch the device in Europe during the third quarter of this year.
Daniel joined TriMed’s Chicago editorial team in 2017 as a Cardiovascular Business writer. He previously worked as a writer for daily newspapers in North Dakota and Indiana.