Some patients who are in danger of losing an arm or leg due to  hardening of the arteries have been getting more hopeful news from vascular surgeons at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) in Boston.

When people have hardening of the arteries, they often feel no symptoms at all. But as they age, the disease can worsen and become critical limb ischemia or CLI. This is a serious illness that clogs the blood vessels so severely people may have painful leg cramps even while resting–or worse–because their limbs aren’t getting enough blood flow, they develop sores that won’t heal or become gangrenous. Most of the time, vascular surgeons can prevent amputation with procedures such as arterial bypass or installing a stent. Their patients often ask if the procedure will save their limb.

When asked about the probability of limb loss, or life, many surgeons use a statistic on how many people live for 10 years after surgery. But for sick, elderly patients, such as an 83 year old with diabetes and CLI, BIDMC researchers have redefined success based on different data and the likelihood that a particular patient will live the rest of his or her life with that limb intact. And that’s good news as these rates tend to be much better.

The researchers at BIDMC recently reviewed seven years of records for patients who experienced a first-time surgical intervention for one of the three symptoms. Here is how likely patients with each symptom were to keep their limbs:

• Resting leg pain – 91%
• Ulcer – 86%
• Gangrene – 78%

Dr. Katie Shean and fellow researcher Dr. Peter A. Soden, will present the findings of the study, “Lifelong Limb Salvage: A Patient-Centered Description of Lower Extremity Arterial Reconstruction Outcomes,” at the Society for Vascular Surgery’s Vascular Annual Meeting in June near Washington, D.C.

Critical limb ischemia is found in at least 12% of U.S. adults, according to data in the National Institutes of Health online resources. Patients in this specific population are at high risk of death from stroke or heart attack. Vascular surgeons are the only surgical specialty trained in all aspects of vascular care and surgical options. All people over 50 should have regular annual physicals and increase awareness of their vascular health.

Society for Vascular Surgery
vascular.org