WSC 2026 | Catheter advances in CVST: large-bore and cyclic aspiration for mechanical thrombectomy

I think I can comment more on the catheter side probably. I do know that there are promising novel thrombolytic drugs out there as well. But in terms of the catheters, I think large-bore aspiration catheters, that means basically just suction catheters with a larger inner diameter, they look quite promising because most of the tools we currently use for cerebral venous thrombosis for mechanical recanalization are actually made for the arterial system. And the intracranial arteries are much, much smaller, half the size or even smaller than that. So currently, we don’t have sufficiently large-sized tools. And with these super large-bore aspiration catheters that have a lumen that’s almost twice as much as traditional aspiration catheters, I think that that’s a very promising technology just because they can ingest more clot. The other thing that’s really promising, I think, is cyclic aspiration. So instead of applying kind of a continuous suction force, these cyclic aspiration pumps, they modulate the aspiration and can sometimes even sense the clot. And that’s been successfully used to remove large amounts of clots in the body space, in pulmonary embolism, for example. And I think that’s a really promising technology once it comes to the cerebrovascular space as well, which it does slowly. I think there’s one company that has gotten FDA approval already for a cyclic aspiration system for stroke. So hopefully we’ll see more of that soon.

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