Amputation Prevention
Amputation is the surgical removal of some or all of a body part. Often, it involves removing an arm or leg, or part of one of these limbs. At Mount Sinai, our vascular specialists do everything we can to try to prevent amputation.
The most common reason for amputation is poor blood flow, severe burn, accident, cancer, or a serious infection that is not responding to traditional treatment. We usually perform amputation to prevent gangrene, which could spread to your bone and endanger the rest of your body.
About Amputation Prevention
Our surgeons at Mount Sinai perform several procedures that can prevent or minimize amputation of a limb. These are:
- Limb-sparing amputations are partial amputations, where the entire limb is not removed, but only part of it. The goal is to preserve as much of the limb as possible, especially a functioning joint. This approach can greatly increase your limb’s functionality.
- Radical debridement is removing dead or infected tissue from a wound so that healthy new tissue can form. If we remove the dead tissue, we hope that we can prevent the infection from entering the bloodstream, which could be fatal.
- Revascularization uses catheters, guidewire, and balloons to open up the blood vessel (or bypass) and increase blood flow to the affected limb, decreasing the need for amputation.