CHANGING lives
New health center looks to reduce limb loss
Each year in the United States, 160,000 amputations occur. That’s one amputation every three minutes. While sometimes amputations might be medically necessary, one new Arkansas health center hopes to change that.
The new Arkansas Amputation Prevention Center in Benton, part of the Saline Health System, wants potential-amputation patients in the state to get a second opinion before having a limb removed.
“There are multitudes of people across the state of Arkansas that are getting amputations early,” said Dr. Lonnie Harrison, director of the Arkansas Amputation Prevention Center. “Amputations occur because a physician or surgeon may see a nonhealing wound on [a patient’s] ankle or foot, which becomes gangrenous, infected and so-on, instead of proceeding with a vascular evaluation. Many times the patient undergoes amputation.”
The AAPC is a multidisciplinary center involving the areas of endovascular surgery, vascular surgery, general surgery, infectious disease, podiatry, wound-care providers, orthopedists and emergency-room staff. The purpose of the center is to diagnose and treat arterial vascular disease, also known as peripheral arterial disease, and prevent amputation. This is accomplished by restoring blood flow to limbs and nonhealing wounds.
“The first step in taking care of the patient, if they have a nonhealing wound, is to see me so I can revascularize and get blood flow back to that wound,” he said.
Harrison said that in cases of peripheral vascular disease, blood flow to the lower extremities is cut off through the blocking of arteries. This cuts off the flow of oxygenand nutrient-rich blood to the area. The first step in treatment, in the past, has been to amputate the infected area, but Harrison said amputation can have a very negative effect on a patient’s quality of life.
“When you cut the leg off, they are not mobile, they become depressed, their disease process continues, they’re no longer ambulatory, so they can no longer do anything,” he said. “Only 20 percent of patients, after an amputation, make it home. The other 80 percent go to a rehab facility or a nursing home for the rest of their life.”
Harrison said that people who have had an amputation only have a 50 percent chance of living two years after the procedure and only a 20 percent chance of living four years afterward. By restoring blood flow to the limb, Harrison said that 91 percent of patients referred to the program who were previously scheduled for amputation were able to prevent amputation.
“Even in the worst-looking wounds, we can still, much of the time, save the leg,” he said.