Balloon device can help save limbs

A NEW procedure can offer more options to patients in Ireland who are at risk of losing parts of limbs.

That’s according to Dr Ian Kelly, who last month carried out the first “plantar loop technique” in Ireland to re-open blood vessels in the foot of a patient with complications of diabetes.

The technique, which was pioneered in Italy, uses a balloon device developed by Irish company ClearStream Technologies to help improve blood flow in an affected limb, explained Dr Kelly, an interventional radiologist at Waterford Regional Hospital.

“With diabetics, the feet and the extremities are particularly affected and they get loss of blood flow to the extremities. That can manifest itself as wet or dry gangrene of the foot and there’s a limited amount of treatment options these patients have,” said Dr Kelly.

“Generally speaking these patients are under threat of losing a limb or part of a limb.”

The new procedure looks to re-establish bloodflow in a natural arcade of blood vessels in the foot, he explained.

“It’s a keyhole technique, so you get in at the groin in the femoral artery and you start to work your way down towards the foot. You use a combination of micro-catheters and wires to advance it and move your way around the occluded vessels.

“You are trying to increase the blood flow to the limb, but the blood vessels are particularly small and you are trying to get a long balloon around the foot and back up again.”

Dr Kelly visited Dr Marco Manzi in Venice to learn the technique, which has been facilitated by the purpose-designed balloon. “This is a major technological advance. Without this balloon I’m not sure whether it would have been feasible,” said Dr Kelly.

“We are in a position to offer these patients treatments that before we couldn’t. This gives patients options and that’s what we are about,” he said.