Clot-Busting Drug Offers New Approach to DVT

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In an extension of this study, Chang's team has done the same procedure using rTPA doses that are five times lower than the ones used in this trial. Lower doses of rTPA further reduce the risk of bleeding, he said.

Although the results of this second study haven't been published yet, Chang said the results were "even better."

"There is a lot of margin for improving this even further," Chang said. The use of thrombotic therapy is not meant to replace blood-thinning therapy, he added, but to be used in tandem to help prevent later complications and recurrence of DVT.

Dr. Suresh Vedantham, an interventional radiologist and an assistant professor of radiology and surgery at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, thinks that this method of dissolving clots could eventually become an outpatient procedure.

"That would be a major step forward," Vedantham said. "This technique is very promising, but it needs to be tested in a larger trial."

But another expert said he wasn't sure if this treatment will prove to be useful.

"The fundamental question is if one requires this intensive type of treatment in order to improve patient outcome over the long term," said Dr. Samuel Z. Goldhaber, director of the venous thromboembolism research group at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

Goldhaber noted that the clot-busting procedure is difficult to do and requires advanced training and it goes against the currently accepted treatment for DVT. "This approach needs to be proven in a randomized, controlled trial," he said.

The trial would have to show that the clot-dissolving procedure was superior to current therapy, worth the extra cost and effort, and the temporary discomfort to the patient, Goldhaber said.

More information

For more on deep vein thrombosis, visit the Society for Interventional Radiology.