Study: Save Limbs With Stents
Reported March 16, 2009
(Ivanhoe Newswire) — Interventional radiologists are revealing new information about the use of drug-eluting stents used to treat critical limb ischemia in peripheral arterial disease or PAD patients. In a new study, researchers concluded the stents can lessen the rate of repeat procedures.
Critical limb ischemia occurs when a person is at great risk for tissue death due to lack of blood flow, which carries oxygen and nutrients to the cells. The severely restricted blood flow results in severe pain in the feet or toes, even while resting. Sores and wounds that will not heal could require limb amputation.
The PAD/stent procedure works by an interventional radiologist performing a balloon angioplasty to open a clogged blood vessel and then placing a drug-eluting stent in that artery. The stent acts as scaffolding to hold the narrowed artery open. Drug-eluting stents slowly release a drug for several weeks to block cell proliferation or re-growth.
SOURCE: Society of Interventional Radiology online, March 2009
