ARTICLES / General /
Fighting Your Legs /
Other ArticlesBy
Dr.
Gary M. Ansel
Lower extremity bypass surgery involves
harvesting a healthy vein from another region of the
body for insertion into the damaged limb, an effort
to reroute blood away from the blocked artery.
Angioplasty is a minimally invasive procedure used
to widen arteries with constricted or blocked blood
flow. During the procedure, a catheter with a
balloon on its tip is inserted into the narrowed
artery and inflated. Once the artery widens, the
balloon is deflated and the catheter is withdrawn,
often restoring blood flow.
Another option in specific arteries (such as the
iliac) is to have a stent (a tubular wire-mesh tube)
inserted into the artery, where it is expanded to
act as a “scaffold” to hold the artery open and
allow blood flow to resume. The procedure is
minimally invasive, as the stent is guided into the
restricted artery with a catheter inserted through a
small opening in the artery located in the groin.
What’s Next
Drug-eluting stents, which are coated with
medicine that is slowly released into the artery,
were created to prevent the recurent disease from
growing through the stent and forming scar tissue, a
process called restenosis. These devices have shown
clinical effectiveness in treating coronary artery
disease, and are currently being studied in the leg
arteries.
In the United States and other parts of the
world, clinical trials are currently underway to
determine the effectiveness of using drug-eluting
stents to treat PAD. The trial process is similar to
the procedure used to treat coronary artery disease,
and involves inserting a drug-eluting stent into the
affected leg.
In the meantime, doctors across the country are
working to increase general awareness and help
identify the early warning signs of the disease. It
is their hope that this heightened awareness, paired
with the acceptance of innovative new treatment
methods, will help eradicate PAD completely.
Dr. Gary M. Ansel is the
Director of the Center for Critical Limb Care
and Clinical Director of the Peripheral Vascular
Intervention-Division of Cardiology at Riverside
Methodist Hospital.
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