Treatment of gangrene without amputation
Gangrene of the leg - this diagnosis sounds like a terrible sentence for 90,000 Russians every year. For 85,000 of them, it ends with a thigh amputation. General and purulent surgeons are mainly involved in the treatment of vascular gangrene in Russia, because vascular surgeons perform elective operations and are afraid of bringing the infection to their departments, where they perform operations on the carotid arteries and aorta.
Amputation leads to profound disability. It leads to a reduction in life expectancy. Rarely does anyone survive 3 years after hip amputation. According to this indicator, gangrene is worse than oncology, therefore limb preservation remains an important task of modern medicine, because it is an increase in the duration and quality of life.
For most patients with vascular gangrene, the leg can be saved from amputation. To do this, you only need to follow a few clear and reasonable steps.
- Restore blood circulation in the leg. For this, the affected areas of the vessels are bypassed using the patient's own vein, or the patency of the artery is restored by inflating it from the inside with a special balloon and installing a metal mesh - a stent.
- Remove dead tissue - perform necrectomy and start wound healing. Against the background of restored blood circulation, these wounds begin to actively granulate.
- Close the resulting wounds using the methods of reconstructive plastic surgeons. Often, after the removal of dead tissue, deep wounds remain that cannot heal on their own, therefore, it is necessary to transplant skin tissues and achieve restoration of the skin.
Why are these simple steps not being followed? The answer is very simple. Vascular, purulent, and plastic surgeons work in different departments or hospitals and do not have an ulnar connection with each other. Therefore, patients lose their legs. Or they smear black fingers with various "folk" means, hoping for a miracle. There are so many "recipes" not described on the Internet, from compresses with urine and chewed bread crumb to cabbage leaves and tar. Unfortunately, all these funds only delay the time, postponing the possibility and timeliness of effective assistance.
The way out is to unite the efforts of surgeons in a special unit - a limb rescue center. One of the first such clusters was organized by the specialists of the Innovative Vascular Center - the Clinic for Innovative Surgery, where the department of vascular microsurgery, endovascular and reconstructive plastic surgery is deployed.
Vascular surgeons perform microsurgical vascular operations up to the arteries of the foot, angioplasty and stenting, and grafting of flaps for wound defects. The priority for these specialists remains complex cases of damage to the smallest arteries, which until recently were considered incurable, but now it is possible to save the leg in most patients with a similar pathology.
A reasonable approach avoids amputation for most patients. I would like to remind you that in addition to the help of vascular surgeons, you must adhere to simple rules and this will help you stay on your feet for many years:
- Quit smoking after surgery
- Pass at least 3 kilomers daily
- Avoid tight shoes
- Do not take a long steam bath
- Scrupulously take prescribed antithrombotic drugs.
Read more about the treatment of gangrene on the pages of the site angioclinic.ru
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