Starting Monday, a Wesley Chapel stroke patient who needs a clot pulled out of the brain should no longer have to be driven out of Pasco County to get it. AdventHealth Wesley Chapel unveils its new biplane neurointerventional suite on Aug. 17 at its campus at 2600 Bruce B. Downs Blvd., giving doctors, first responders and community leaders a first look at the equipment that makes that possible.
The procedure at the center of it is mechanical thrombectomy. A specialist threads a thin catheter up through the patient’s blood vessels, reaches the clot that is choking off blood flow to the brain, and removes it. No open surgery. It is used for certain severe ischemic strokes, and the sooner it happens, the better the odds of walking out without permanent disability.
Until now, some Pasco patients who needed that level of intervention had to be transferred to hospitals elsewhere. That meant more time on the clock and, for families, a drive to a city farther from home while someone they love was in a bed they could not sit beside. The hospital says the new suite, combined with newly added neurointerventional physicians, keeps those cases in Wesley Chapel…