Vibrating boot that unblocks arteries in your LEGS

AVIBRATING plastic boot could help to clear clogged arteries in the leg — initial research shows the boot boosts blood flow to the lower leg and foot by more than 40 per cent.

A trial is now under way at the Royal Oldham Hospital in Lancashire.

Called FlowOx, the device has been designed to treat peripheral arterial disease (PAD), which is thought to affect 2.7 million Britons aged 55 or older.

This is where arteries — mostly in the lower legs, although it can occur in the arms — become narrowed due to fatty deposits, called plaques, which gradually restrict blood flow, causing symptoms such as pain when walking.

The poor circulation can also cause muscle and skin tissue to die, which may result in complications such as ulcers that won’t heal. Left untreated, these can result in infections and may mean the limb needs to be amputated.

Most patients are given drugs such as aspirin to thin the blood and reduce the risk of clotting.

However, in many cases, this is not enough, and patients often need surgery to insert a tiny tube called a stent or a small balloon in the blood vessel to hold it open and improve blood flow.

This carries a risk of restenosis, where surrounding tissue becomes inflamed because of the presence of foreign material, causing another blockage. T HE new device — which looks like an oversized ski boot — could offer a simpler solution. Two air hoses connect FlowOx to a machine, which, when turned on, pumps air in and out of the boot constantly. By switching between positive and negative air pressure in the space around the lower leg, the boot stimulates the movement of more oxygen-rich blood through clogged arteries.

Patients insert the affected foot into the plastic device. Two polystyrene supports slot into the top of the boot, in the front and the back, to hold the leg securely in place, so that from the shin to the toes, it is ‘floating’ in air.

The patient, who remains seated during treatment, then flicks a switch to turn on the pump. This is connected to the boot with two hoses attached to the toe cap. Air pressure inside the boot changes every few seconds, with a treatment session lasting two hours.

The patient can’t feel it, but the change in air pressure makes the blood vessel walls gently vibrate, encouraging the blood to flow. This keeps tissues in the lower leg, ankle and foot fed with oxygen.

A study at the University of Oslo in Norway last year saw 23 healthy volunteers use the boot.

It showed that blood velocity — a measure of how quickly blood is flowing through the arteries — increased by 44 per cent after a couple of hours of treatment, according to the journal Physiological Reports.

In the new trial, 15 patients with PAD will use the boot at home for two hours a day, or continue with standard care. Their conditions will be compared for three months.

Kevin Varty, a consultant vascular surgeon at Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said: ‘This sounds feasible and is an interesting concept.

‘But there is little evidence yet to say whether it works or how effective it really is.’

MEANWHILE, a drug used to treat gout could reduce the risk of PAD by up to a quarter, say U.S. researchers.

They looked at rates of PAD in more than 25,000 patients and found that those on the drug allopurinol — which works on gout by reducing levels of uric acid in the body — for at least two years were 25 per cent less likely to have clogged arteries in the leg than those not taking the drug, according to the journal Rheumatology.