CLI is a Major Public Health Concern With Prognosis Worse Than Many Types of Cancer

Abstract

Despite advancing technologies available to treat CLI, we clearly have a long journey ahead of us on behalf of our patients. With the Journal of Critical Limb Ischemia, we are pleased to be able to provide a forum for original CLI work that will be reviewed by multidisciplinary, international CLI experts who understand the complex nature of CLI. The Editorial Board of Journal of Critical Limb Ischemia comprises physicians from across the globe who understand the difficulty and complexity of gathering CLI data. They are vascular surgeons, interventional cardiologists and radiologists, podiatrists, angiologists, and wound care experts. These experts are well aware of the reality of the advanced and complex nature of CLI disease with high 5-year mortality. Because of this, we believe that CLI trials should be modeled after diseases that have a high mortality rate over a short period of time. We must be able to capture the true nature of the disease and its impact on patients affected by it. If we continue to model CLI studies under the conventional nature of vascular disease in general we will never be able to achieve meaningful and convincing data to change the course of therapy. We desperately need new technologies to treat CLI to reduce the incidence of unnecessary amputations occurring in the United States and throughout the world. We clearly can, and must, do better. Our patients are demanding progress.