Non-Invasive Procedure that Breaks up Blood Clots Holds Promise

An ultrasound-stimulated show of microbubbles have shown promise as a non-invasive way to break up dangerous blood clots.

According to researchers in Toronto, they collected the first direct evidence that shows that the wiggling microbubbles can cause a blood clot to stop its formation.

Background information from the study notes that previous work on this technique, also known as sonothrombolysis, have focused on how a blood clot shrinks or possibly becomes restored through help of the procedure.

Researchers tried to catch the demise of the clot in action by using high-speed photography and a 3-D microscopy technique. They discovered that by stimulating the microbubbles with ultrasonic pulses, the bubbles moved closer to the clot and deformed its boundaries as it began to burrow into them and break the clots up.

Researchers hope that these improvements in the understanding of how sonothrombolysis works will help them develop more advanced methods for breaking up blood clots.

Efforts so far "may only be scratching the surface with respect to effectiveness," lead study author Christopher Acconcia notes, via a press release. "Our findings provide a tool that can be used to develop more sophisticated sonothrombolysis techniques, which may lead to new tools to safely and efficiently dissolve clots in a clinical setting."

More information regarding the study can be found via the journal Applied Physics Letters.