With appropriate care, even patients considered high-risk can undergo these procedures safely and effectively. The medical center has documented thousands of successful patient case histories that detail how complex revascularizations using distal bypass operations and other adjunctive techniques have achieved a healed foot and avoided amputation. The multidisciplinary team of vascular surgeons, interventional radiologists, plastic surgeons, cardiologists, physical therapists, and nurses, has an extraordinarily positive attitude that remains one of the enduring ingredients in helping people at Montefiore. The disease is exacerbated in those who lead a sedentary lifestyle, have poor nutritional habits or smoke heavily. People with a family history of disease, high blood pressure or heart disease, and a family history of heart disease are at risk.
Diabetes also remains one of the leading conditions associated with vascular disease.
Arterial disease develops when cholesterol or other deposits build up inside the artery walls and cause a blockage. The arteries gradually narrow to the point where blood flow to the heart and the extremities becomes insufficient. The legs and feet are often the first areas of the body to show the effects of this disease, although other patients may have strokes or mini strokes from plaque formation in the carotid arteries in the neck. Lower extremity symptoms vary. They may include an aching, tired or heavy feeling in the calf of the leg, thigh or buttock when walking or exercising.