Shape-Shifting Device Extends Stroke Treatment to Smaller Brain Vessels with Ronen Eckhouse Rapid Medical episode artwork

EPISODE · Apr 20, 2026 · 18 MIN

Shape-Shifting Device Extends Stroke Treatment to Smaller Brain Vessels with Ronen Eckhouse Rapid Medical

from Empowered Patient Podcast · host Karen Jagoda

Ronen Eckhouse, Co-Founder and CEO of Rapid Medical, identifies the limitations of current stroke treatments, which are primarily effective for large vessel occlusions.  The Rapid Medical TIGERTRIEVER device is designed to safely and effectively treat strokes and remove clots in smaller vessels deeper in the brain.  The unique adjustability of the device allows physicians to control the size and force during a procedure, allowing for precise and safer clot removal in complex anatomies. Ronen explains, "So the quicker or the less time there is between the stroke and the ability to open the occlusions and resupply the brain with oxygen, the better. There are two types of treatments. One is a drug called TPA. It's a clot buster, and that can be administered up to four and a half hours. And then there's what's called thrombectomy, which is basically using a catheter to get to the clot and then removing the clot with a catheter or stent, kind of in mechanical terms. But today, that's only applicable to what's for the bigger arteries in the brain, what's called large vessel occlusions. And these account for about 15% or 20% of the population. So there are good solutions, but they are limited in when they can be used."   "That's exactly where we come in. The reason it's difficult to treat these kinds of smaller vessels in the brain, or what we call the medium-vessel occlusion, is that the deeper you go into the brain, on the one hand, the complexity of the procedure increases. So the vessels are a little bit more fragile. There are more turns and tortuosity. So getting to the clot is a little bit harder, and pulling it out as well." "At the same time, the benefit is a little bit smaller. So now we're not saving half of the brain. Maybe we're saving 30% of the brain, which is still very significant, but the benefit is a little bit smaller. So the risk-benefit ratio, which is critical and everything we do in medicine, changes when you're going deeper into the brain. And as a result, you need new tools." #RapidMedical #DMVO #MeVO  #Stroke #StrokeCare #Neurology #MedTech #DISTALS #Neurovascular #MedicalDevices #HealthcareInnovation #Thrombectomy #PatientCare #MedicalTechnology #StrokeAwareness #HealthcareProfessionals rapid-medical.com  Download the transcript here

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Shape-Shifting Device Extends Stroke Treatment to Smaller Brain Vessels with Ronen Eckhouse Rapid Medical

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