A 75-Year-Old Patient Saved from Amputation with ‘2 in 1’ Intervention for Artery Blockage in Legs

On April 18, Dr. Le Van Tuyen from the Vascular Intervention Center at Tam Anh General Hospital shared that Mr. Minh, a 75-year-old patient, had an artery blockage in his lower limbs that caused leg pain and was unable to walk. Doctors performed a “2 in 1” intervention to save the blood vessels in his legs.

According to Dr. Nguyen Anh Dung, head of the Department of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery at the Cardiovascular Center, Mr. Minh is an old patient with a history of hypertension, diabetes, coronary artery disease, and chronic kidney disease. He was worried about undergoing major surgery due to his age and health conditions. Therefore, doctors decided to combine surgery and endovascular intervention for the patient to completely resolve the condition.

Within two hours, the doctor bypassed the long-term blockage of the left leg artery and placed a stent at the blockage site in the left iliac artery. The team revascularized the right thigh using very small incisions. The procedure aimed to save Mr. Minh’s legs from necrosis risk while reducing surgical trauma for him. After the procedure, Mr. Minh had no pain or numbness in both feet and could learn to walk again before being discharged from the hospital after three days on follow-up examination with normal blood perfusion index of both legs bridging sites placed stents were placed for smooth flow .

Lower extremity arterial occlusion occurs when blood vessels supplying legs become blocked by a blood clot or atherosclerotic plaque resulting in severe leg pain, pale skin loss of sensation and even necrosis if not intervened promptly patients are at risk of limb amputation and death factors that increase this risk include age smoking diabetes obesity dyslipidemia hypertension sedentary lifestyle family history of vascular disease to reduce this risk Dr Dung recommends not smoking exercising regularly maintaining suitable weight bmi below 23 controlling chronic underlying diseases