Temple doctor’s innovation transforms blood clot treatment

Dr. Riyaz Bashir developed a catheter that is saving lives and reshaping how pulmonary embolisms are treated.

Dr. Riyaz Bashir developed an endovascular catheter that will change how pulmonary embolisms are treated. | KAYLA MCMONAGLE / THE TEMPLE NEWS

Throughout his career as an interventional cardiologist, Dr. Riyaz Bashir has witnessed countless patients struggle with life-threatening blood clots. Outdated treatments often fell short, failing to provide the relief his patients so desperately needed. 

But Bashir didn’t just see a problem — he envisioned a solution.

“I find that love is the most potent stimulus for creativity,” said Bashir, professor of medicine at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine and director of vascular and endovascular medicine at Temple University Hospital. “If you love your patients, you’ll treat them as you would your child, your mom, your dad. You’re going to find creative solutions. You’re not going to take no for an answer.”

Bashir’s innovative mindset allowed him to improve patient outcomes for pulmonary embolisms through his invention of the BASHIR Endovascular Catheter, which removes blood clots from the lungs more efficiently than existing treatments. 

His journey – from initial sketches to clinical trials – required collaboration and a commitment to patient care to eventually earn approval from the United States Food and Drug Administration in 2023. 

Pulmonary embolism occurs when a blood clot blocks a pulmonary artery, cutting off blood flow to the lungs. It’s a silent killer, often diagnosed too late, with traditional treatments requiring long procedures or offering limited success. 

Traditional catheter-based treatments were originally designed for small blood vessels, typically around five millimeters in diameter. These techniques have been used for much larger vessels, sometimes up to 30 millimeters, like those in the lungs. This mismatch in design and scale often leads to ineffective clot removal and increased risk of complications, but Bashir’s device addresses this problem head-on.

The BASHIR Endovascular Catheter uses its unique design to target and break up blood clots, specifically in large vessels affected by PE. Once inserted, its six flexible limbs fan out in a spiral pattern, creating multiple fissures in the clot and allowing blood to flow into these new channels. Doctors then spray a dissolving medication into the fissures, speeding up the breakdown of the clot and restoring blood flow.

Bashir’s invention could change the course for countless patients at risk of PE, offering a faster and more effective way to break down blood clots. 

“The BASHIR Catheter is likely to play a central role in that innovation – to be more aggressive in getting larger pulmonary emboli to get smaller in a shorter period of time and in a safe and effective manner,” said Dr. Paul Forfia, professor of medicine at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine and co-director of the Pulmonary Hypertension, Right Heart Failure & CTEPH Program at Temple University Hospital.

The catheter minimizes the need for prolonged procedures or excessive use of clot-dissolving medications. During a research study, Bashir found the treatment reduced the risk of bleeding and complications and took just 17 minutes — a massive improvement from existing methods that take hours or days. Bashir’s work has earned him recognition from colleagues who view him as a leader in the field.

“Dr. Bashir represents the best of Temple Health and Temple University, with his clinical innovation and leadership in the realm of pulmonary embolism and interventional cardiology,” said Dr. Anjali Vaidya, director of Pulmonary Hypertension Fellowship at Temple University Hospital.

When Bashir’s device was still a creation of the mind, he knew that turning his idea into a reality would require guidance and collaboration. His journey began in 2014 when he met Marvin Woodall, former president of Johnson & Johnson Interventional Systems, at a medical conference.

In their conversation, Bashir expressed disappointment at the current state of PE treatment and told Woodall about an idea that would help patients. Coincidentally, this was an issue that personally impacted Woodall, who lost a friend to PE. He encouraged Bashir to make sketches of the idea, get them notarized and send them his way.

Bashir worked quickly to get the sketches to Woodall, who then connected him with an engineer to make the idea a reality. But that engineer said it couldn’t be made and there was no way it was going to happen. Reading the disappointment on Bashir’s face, the engineer threw him a lifeline and connected him with another engineer, Nicholas Green, for a second opinion. 

“I told Nick my idea and what I was trying to do,” Bashir said. “He said, ‘Dr. Bashir, I will do everything I can to make it happen.’ I was like, ‘One engineer said it can’t be made and you’re saying you’ll make it?’ Then he told me about his best friend who died from a blood clot in his lung. My jaw just dropped. He literally made the whole prototype by himself and didn’t ask me to pay him anything.”

With Green’s help, Bashir’s idea finally materialized, but it needed the attention they both thought it deserved. Bashir submitted the invention on a whim to the American Heart Association Innovation Challenge in 2016 and won the first prize, generating plenty of interest from venture capitalists to government agencies. 

Along with Green and Woodall, Bashir co-founded Thrombolex Inc., the company that would ultimately develop and commercialize the device. Funding came from many different places, including $3 million from the National Institutes of Health and $2 million from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for clinical trials that earned them approval from the FDA. 

Throughout Bashir’s journey, the health of his patients has been his driving force. In December 2023, he received a letter from a patient’s mother in Georgia. She thanked him for the invention that saved her daughter’s life in the middle of the night when she was dying from a blood clot in her lung.

“When I read this card, I was overwhelmed with joy,” Bashir said. “That was the reason I developed it. Here you have a patient that I’ve never seen, never touched, but it helped them. That’s what I wanted.”

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