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SAN FRANCISCO, CA—Patients with acute intermediate-high-risk pulmonary embolism (PE) who undergo mechanical thrombectomy have a greater reduction in the RV/LV ratio at 48 hours than those treated with anticoagulation alone, according to results from the STORM-PE trial.

STORM-PE, as the first randomized trial to compare mechanical thrombectomy versus standard anticoagulation, evaluated a specific intervention: computer-assisted vacuum thrombectomy (CAVT) using the 16-Fr Lightning Flash system (Penumbra), which became commercially available in 2023.

Sharing the results at a TCT 2025 press conference, investigator Robert Lookstein, MD (Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY), said the study was a long time coming.

“The endovascular era for management of acute PE started over 10 years ago,” with the ULTIMA trial of ultrasound lysis versus anticoagulation alone, he noted. In the ensuing years, the US Food and Drug Administration has approved no fewer than seven devices in this area.

For the ULTIMA trial, researchers used RV/LV ratio as their primary endpoint—the same being used now by STORM-PE. That surrogate finding, measured on echocardiography or CT scan, “denotes strain on the right heart that’s caused by an acute pulmonary embolism,” said Lookstein. An RV/LV ratio ≥ 1.0 has been linked previously to worse prognosis: a more than twofold rise in the risk of early death and more than threefold rise in the risk of PE death.

“This is a foundational trial,” he told TCTMD. “I would argue it’s a game changer, because it’s the first trial that’s ever been done that’s compared these new minimally invasive options to the gold standard of anticoagulation alone.”

Sanjum S. Sethi, MD (NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center, New York, NY), in the media briefing, said STORM-PE “is validating what is already happening in clinical practice and what single-arm studies [have] demonstrated.” However, the new results don’t give any clues as to long-term or hard clinical outcomes, added Sethi.

“We feel this is the first step in the right direction to offer this therapy to more patients,” said Lookstein.

STORM-PE Trial

The 22-site STORM-PE trial enrolled 100 patients (mean age about 60 years; 46% female) with clinical signs and symptoms of acute PE for 14 days or less, CT pulmonary angiography (CTPA) evidence of a filling defect in at least one main or proximal lobar pulmonary artery, RV/LV ratio ≥ 1.0 on CTPA, and elevated cardiac biomarkers. Patients were randomized to either continue on anticoagulation or to also receive CAVT.

Anticoagulation regimens were similar in the two study arms, with 87.0% and 90.4% of the CAVT and drug-therapy groups, respectively, reaching therapeutic levels within 48 hours.

Change in RV/LV diameter ratio at 48 hours, the primary endpoint, was greater with CAVT than with anticoagulation alone (mean reduction 0.52 vs 0.24; P < 0.001). The relative reduction was larger for the CAVT group as well (29.7% vs 13.1%; P < 0.0.001). Additionally, more patients had a positive treatment effect, achieving an RV/LV ratio decrease of > 0.2, with CAVT as compared with anticoagulation (79.3% vs 51.9%; P = 0.001).

Major adverse events within 7 days, a composite of PE-related mortality, recurrent PE, clinical deterioration requiring rescue therapy, and major bleeding, occurred at a rate of 4.3% with CAVT and 7.5% with anticoagulation. Two CAVT patients, but no anticoagulation patients, died of PE-related causes; these events were deemed unrelated to the procedure or device.

“These results obviously reinforce the increasing role of mechanical thrombectomy for patients with acute intermediate-high-risk pulmonary embolism,” Lookstein concluded.

As part of STORM-PE, patients were offered a wearable device at discharge to track their vital signs and allow for functional assessment, he added. “On behalf of the trial leadership, we’re very excited to present our additional secondary and functional outcomes in the near future at subsequent meetings later this year.”

October 26, 2025 4:24 PM, EDT

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SAN DIEGO — Connected fleet technology supplier Samsara highlighted the latest expansion of its artificial intelligence-powered safety platform at American Trucking Associations’ 2025 Management Conference & Exhibition.

During an Oct. 26 press conference, Samsara outlined its recently launched AI tools that provide alerts on adverse weather and automate driver coaching to help fleets reduce risk and prevent crashes.

“The reason this matters — and is also so important for our customers — is crashes are going up and the cost of crashes is going up,” said Johan Land, Samsara’s senior vice president of engineering and head of safety and AI.

One of Samsara’s new features is designed to help fleets better navigate weather conditions, which play a role in 1 in out of 5 crashes, he said.

“It’s up there with speeding, mobile phone [usage], drowsiness and following distance,” Land said. “It’s one of the major contributors to accidents.”

The company’s new Weather Intelligence feature enables fleets to track weather and road risks in real time by combining radar data with information sourced directly from Samsara’s own network of AI dashcams.

The Samsara platform now displays National Weather Service alerts and live weather overlays, including radar, wind speed and thunderstorm risk directly into the map.

Fleet managers can access live dashcam footage and images from their vehicles in areas affected by weather, as well as from other nearby vehicles equipped with Samsara dashcams via its StreetSense capability.

They can then send proactive warnings to drivers in the path of severe weather events to ensure they are aware of the risk.

Samsara also is using AI and automation to help fleet operators coach, train and recognize their drivers at scale without overburdening their safety teams.

The Automated Risk Assessment feature uses AI to automatically analyze and prioritize safety-related events based on factors such as frequency, severity, trip conditions and driver history.

The system sends lower priority events to drivers for self review, while more serious events are sent directly to fleet managers, who can then focus their time on coaching their riskiest drivers.

Samsara customer Jordan Carriers, for instance, has a single safety manager overseeing and coaching 1,000 drivers with the help of AI and automation, Land said.

“That’s the future of this type of AI training,” he said. “Let’s analyze everything, let AI automatically coach and then focus where it matters.”

The platform’s Performance Overview dashboard provides fleet managers information not only on safety risks, but also positive driver behavior so they can recognize and reward their top performers.

Samsara previewed its expanded AI safety capabilities at its Beyond 2025 user conference, also held in San Diego back in June.