Limb Preservation for the Vascular Specialist

This book is a comprehensive guide to the essentials of arterial, venous, wound care, and multidisciplinary approaches to prevent major amputation and manage patients with critical limb threatening ischemia (CLTI). Limb preservation has become increasingly prioritized as endovascular techniques, equipment, understanding of multidisciplinary wound care, and other medical treatments have rapidly evolved. Quite often, these patients have CLTI, which is a primarily chronic arterial disease that carries a higher mortality rate than most cancers and cardiovascular diseases. Additionally, complex venous issues contribute to patients losing their limbs, causing significant morbidity to patients and immense cost to the medical system. Many of these patients have diabetes, kidney problems, and hypertension. Due to the advances in the treatment of CLTI and complex venous diseases, medical professionals have been able to decrease major amputations, which cause the higher mortality rate described above. The knowledge of all the approaches, techniques, and management of these patients, however, has been slow to be disseminated.