Current status of heroic limb salvage for critical limb ischemia

The treatment of chronic lower extremity peripheral arterial disease is in a state of flux. During the past decade, vascular surgeons have assumed the responsibility for the endovascular care of patients needing vascular intervention. Once surgeons began performing these procedures, a change in attitude toward angioplasty resulted in an "endovascular explosion" and an overall reassessment of the traditional approaches to critical limb ischemia. Our current method of assessing outcomes is also in a state of flux. The original measure of procedural success, reconstruction patency, has been found to be a poor predictor of both patient palliation and functional success. A shift toward determining more accurate, patient-oriented outcome measures is ongoing. Until then, evidence would suggest that there are patients with such severe medical comorbidities, which include impaired ambulatory ability at presentation, that the benefits of revascularization seem to be insignificant. As our patient population ages and our healthcare system continues to fail financially, economic rationing motivated by lack of evidence-based data to the contrary may dictate that these patients are best served by primary limb amputation.