Several hours earlier, Ladurini had had lost consciousness in his bathroom. An ambulance took him to a local hospital in Crestview, where a CT scan detected extensive blood clots in his lungs.
“When the doctor told me there’s nothing he could do for me, it was not a good feeling, but I continued to have faith,” Ladurini said.
Although the hospital couldn’t remove the blood clots, the ER doctor knew of a specialized team at Ascension Sacred Heart Pensacola that could.
Ladurini,76, was transferred to Ascension Sacred Heart, where interventional cardiologist Dr. Rohit Amin performed a mechanical thrombectomy, a minimally-invasive procedure that removes blood clots from vessels. Dr. Amin guided a special catheter through a small incision in the groin to the pulmonary arteries with the clots. He grabbed the clots with a mesh and removed them from the body.
Mechanical thrombectomy has been shown to improve patient outcomes and decrease the length of hospitalization for patients diagnosed with venous thromboembolism, a disorder that can occur in any deep vein, including arms or legs and lungs. “Like heart attack and stroke, we can now perform procedures on these patients to improve their clinical condition rapidly,” Dr. Amin said.
Ladurini said he’s thankful for the care he received. “I’m thankful to God that I have more time on earth,” he said. “It’s not just one doctor, but everyone at the hospital was unbelievably great.”
His team’s attention to care didn’t stop once he went home. “I left my walker at the hospital. Nurse Jillian brought the walker to our house and checked how I was doing,” said Ladurini. “That’s what Sacred Heart is about; the care doesn’t stop when you walk out of the hospital.”
The Deep Vein Thrombosis/Pulmonary Embolism (DVT/PE) team at Ascension Sacred Heart Pensacola recently marked a milestone in patient care by performing its 200th Inari procedure.
Dr. Amin and Dr. Christopher Bosarge, a vascular and interventional radiologist, established the DVT/PE team in 2014. It’s the only formal, multi-disciplinary team in Northwest Florida that specializes in treating VTE. This team is available 24/7 and provides short- and long-term follow-up care.
For more information, call 850-416-4970.