Dileep Yavagal, MD: MT2020+ and Increasing Access to Mechanical Thrombectomy

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The professor of clinical neurology at University of Miami and MT2020+ chair discussed the initiative’s effort to improve the global accessibility of mechanical thrombectomy.

“We started to think about implementation and dissemination of this treatment all over our big country of the United States, but also globally. The burden of stroke is disproportionately higher in the low- and middle-income countries.”

In 2015, mechanical thrombectomy became the standard of care for treating stroke caused by large vessel occlusion (LVO), which is often associated with worse outcomes. In fact, accounts for almost three-fifths of long-term disability and death for all strokes, despite only accounting for 20% to 30% of the estimated 13 million people suffering strokes each year globally.

Despite its well-known benefits, the uptake in the utilization of this procedure has been slower than many stroke specialists have hoped. Dileep Yavagal, MD, professor of clinical neurology, University of Miami, described it as “a step forward not just in stroke but in all of medicine” to NeurologyLive. As such, he and a group of other experts in stroke, as part of the Society of Vascular and Interventional Neurology (SVIN) came together to start the Mechanical Thrombectomy 2020+ (MT2020+) initiative, of which he serves as chair.

Recently, the group published a white paper that called for a push to increase the awareness, accessibility, and action for mechanical thrombectomy for patients with stroke worldwide. To find out more about the programs and its goals, NeurologyLive inquired with Yavagal, who is also a past-president of SVIN. He explained the challenges that have been laid out since the acceptance of this procedure as standard of care, and why this initiative is so essential for the improvement of care for patients with LVO stroke.