Scientific paperMajor lower extremity amputations at a Veterans Affairs hospital
Section snippets
Patients and methods
The medical records of all patients on the vascular surgery service who underwent a major lower extremity amputation for vascular pathology over a 7-year period from September 1994 to October 2001 were retrieved from a computerized data base. Two hundred and twenty-nine patients who underwent 296 consecutive major lower extremity amputations at a single VA medical center were identified. All amputations were performed by members of the vascular surgery department. Amputations distal to the
Results
Two hundred and ninety-six consecutive major lower extremity amputations were performed on 229 patients. One hundred and seventy-seven BKAs and 119 AKAs were performed during this period, yielding a BKA to AKA ratio of 1.6. Forty of the patients (17%) eventually required an amputation of their contralateral limb. Twenty-seven (15%) of the BKAs required a subsequent ipsilateral AKA; this subset of patients composes the previously described group 3.
There were 8 female patients and 221 male
Comments
Although some groups have reported a substantial reduction in the number of major amputations associated with the increased use of lower extremity bypass surgery and angioplasty techniques [10], most large population-based studies suggest that major lower extremity amputation rates and their associated mortality have remained relatively unchanged over the past 2 decades [2]. Patients in need of lower extremity amputations represent a high-risk population with multiple comorbidities as is
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