A stroke on the South Shore of Nassau County no longer has to mean a transfer to another hospital for the procedure that removes the clot. Mount Sinai South Nassau in Oceanside now performs that treatment, known as mechanical thrombectomy or clot retrieval, at any hour of any day, after investing more than $10 million in a new biplane imaging suite and the team to run it.

What changed in Oceanside

Clot retrieval is the procedure used for the most serious kind of ischemic stroke, when a large vessel in the brain is blocked. A neurointerventional surgeon threads a thin catheter from an artery, usually in the groin or wrist, up into the brain and pulls the clot out. The speed of that procedure matters: brain tissue is lost every minute blood flow is cut off, so the distance between a patient and a room that can do it is part of the treatment.

Until now, the hospital on Oceanside Road could not offer it around the clock. The new suite sits beside the hospital's emergency department and trauma unit, and it is staffed by a group of neurointerventional surgeons that includes Dr. M. Travis Caton and Dr. Jonathan Sisti. The hospital has been sharing the change on its own channels since World Stroke Day on October 29, including a patient who was treated there and went home to her family.

What a biplane suite is

A biplane system uses two X-ray cameras mounted on separate arms that rotate around the patient, capturing the blood vessels of the brain from two angles at once. The images come together into a live, three-dimensional view of the arteries and the flow through them, which is what lets a surgeon find a blockage and steer a catheter to it. Because the same room can diagnose and treat, a patient does not have to be moved between a scan and a procedure.

The same equipment is used for other conditions of the blood vessels in the brain, including aneurysms and narrowed arteries.

The stroke program it builds on

Mount Sinai South Nassau describes itself as the first hospital in Nassau County to be designated a Stroke Center by the New York State Department of Health. It also holds Primary Stroke Center certification from The Joint Commission, and it has earned the American Heart Association and American Stroke Association's Get With The Guidelines Stroke Gold Plus award along with a place on the Target: Stroke Honor Roll Elite list.

What the new suite adds is the ability to do the most time sensitive stroke procedure on site at 3 a.m. on a Sunday as well as at noon on a Tuesday.

What residents should know

The warning signs of a stroke are a face that droops on one side, an arm that drifts down when both are raised, and speech that is slurred or strange. Any one of them is a reason to call 911 right away rather than drive to a hospital, because paramedics can alert the stroke team before arrival.

Mount Sinai South Nassau is at One Healthy Way in Oceanside. Information about its stroke program, its certifications and its neurology services is on the hospital's stroke center page.

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