Cryoplasty an Alternative to Leg Amputation

An alternative to below-the-knee amputation for patients with critical limb ischemia is the minimally invasive CryoPlasty procedure.

Outcomes of the first 20 patients to receive the therapy show that 95% were able to avoid near-certain below-the-knee amputation. Using CryoPlasty, the PolarCath system gently cools and revascularizes clogged arteries and helps prevent re-clogging. Critical limb ischemia is the later stage of peripheral arterial disease (PAD), or peripheral vascular disease. Patients with PAD are at risk for ulceration, infection, gangrene, or amputation. Around 160,000 such amputations are performed every year in the United States alone.

PolarCath is a new vascular device that treats clogged arteries by cooling them to 10oC/14oF with a balloon filled with liquid nitrous oxide. This gentle cooling of the plaque and artery wall results in three potential benefits: weakening the plaque, which promotes universal dilation and lessens vessel trauma; reducing vessel wall recoil; and inducing apoptosis in the smooth muscle cells that are implicated in restenosis.

"Once it is established that lifestyle changes and drug therapy aren't working for these people, the CryoPlasty technique is a reasonable first-line interventional option, even before standard angioplasty,” noted Dr. James Joye, D.O., director of the cardiac catheterization lab at El Camino Hospital (Mountain View, CA, USA) and cofounder of the CryoPlasty technique of CryoVascular Systems (Los Gatos, CA, USA).




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