ARTICLE SUMMARY:
Critical limb ischemia is the worst kind of peripheral artery disease, and it comes with a poor prognosis: 50% of CLI patients will eventually undergo an amputation and 25% will die within one year of diagnosis. It’s also the final frontier in vascular medicine—a diagnosis that lacks adequate definition, rigorous clinical trials, standardized treatment protocols, and even its own purpose-built interventional tools.
Peripheral artery disease (PAD), or atherosclerosis in arteries in the limbs, is on the rise worldwide, driven by rapidly aging populations and a combination of well-known risk factors, including diabetes, smoking, high cholesterol, kidney disease, obesity, and a sedentary lifestyle.
