Role of disarticulation and guillotine amputation of the shin in the lower limb ischemic gangrene surgical treatment strategy

Abstract

Ischemic foot gangrene is one of the most common reasons of nontraumatic low limb amputations all over the world. Objective: to analyze the clinical effectiveness of an individual treatment strategy application for patients with absolute indications for high limb amputation, aimed to reduce amputation level, the number of postoperative complications and mortality. Materials and methods. This article presents the results of comparative clinical trial executing a lower-extremity amputation in 992 patients with ischemic gangrene. Applied in this study strategy of surgical treatment included usual below-knee, above-knee amputations and guillotine amputations in the lower third of the shin also the shin exarticulation without wound plastic. Guillotine amputations was used as an intermediate stage of treatment in cases where due to the severe general condition of patients to perform a classic myoplastic amputation with stump formation was impossible, since it is accompanied by a very high risk of postoperative complications and mortality. Results. Using guillotine amputations and shin exarticulation as the first stage of complex surgical strategy aimed to rapid elimination of the purulent focus with minimal risks and the speedy stabilization of the patients general condition, emaciated and weakened by developing gangrene, led to reduce general lethality by 17.1 % and increased the quantity of below-knee amputations by 23.0 % compared with the comparison group. Conclusion. Patients with ischemic gangrene require the development of an individual strategy for surgical treatment (taking into account the severity of the patients general condition, the prevalence of the purulent-necrotic process in the lower limb, the nature and degree of peripheral macroangiopathy), which can reliably and significantly reduce the number of amputations at the hip level (by 46.2%), as well as reduce mortality after high amputations of the lower extremities (by 17.1%) in an emergency city hospital. We consider it extremely important to reduce the number of primary amputations at the hip level!