Peripheral Arterial Interventions
Peripheral arterial disease (PAD) is due to narrowed blood vessels which limit blood flow to the limbs. When blood supply to the lower extremities is less than the demand, patients develop symptoms. The narrowing is commonly related to atherosclerosis or fatty and calcium deposits in the walls of the blood vessels.
Symptoms of PAD are divided into two main categories:
- Claudication, which is pain with walking when the legs don’t receive enough blood flow to keep up with demand. Claudication should be initially managed clinically with supervised exercise program, diet modification, smoking cessation, and medications. However, if claudication is lifestyle limiting and unresponsive to medical management, then endovascular or open surgical treatments may be necessary.
- Critical limb ischemia, which is presence of rest pain or non-healing wounds due to severely diminished blood flow to the legs and feet. Critical limb ischemi is the consequence of severe peripheral vascular disease and is associated with high likelyhood of amputations, morbidity and mortality.
- Risk factors for PAD include smoking, diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholestrol, increasing age, familty history of PAD or stroke or heart attacks.
- All patients with PAD should undergo diet modifications with low saturated fat diet, quitting smoking and tobacco products, agressive sugar control if diabetic, exercise or walk 30 minutes daily, and maintain healthy weight.
- Most patients with PAD can be treated succesfully via endovascular minimally invasive approach with advanced techniques such as ballooning, stenting, atherectomy, or intravascular lithotripsy without the need for surgical bypass.
- If you have lifestyle limiting claudication or critical limb ischemia, please contact us for a consultation. North County vascular and interventional specialists are experts in endovascular minimally invasive treatments of peripheral vascular disease.