Health Library Home>Conditions InDepth>Article

Surgical Procedures for Peripheral Artery Disease (PAD)

Animation Movie AvailableRelated Media: Angioplasty

Surgery may be used for PAD that is causing bad health problems. It may also be used when other methods fail or there is a danger of limb loss. The main goal is to get blood to flow better.

Bypass Grafting

If blood can't flow to your limb, your doctor may want to do bypass grafting It removes a healthy blood vessel from the leg or somewhere else the body. The vessel is attached to the problem artery just above and just below the part that isn’t working right. Blood will then be able to go around it by moving through the new blood vessel.

Percutaneous Angioplasty

Percutaneous angioplasty uses tubes to help view and open vessels. A thin tube is passed into larger arteries like those in your groin and passed through vessels to the blocked part. Tools can then be used to remove or break up clots, press down on plaque, or place devices that help prop vessels open. Cryoplasty is one more method. It uses nitrous oxide to cool and open the artery.

Balloon Angioplasty

Copyright © Nucleus Medical Media, Inc.

REFERENCES:

Hills AJ, Shalhoub J, et al. Peripheral arterial disease. Br J Hosp Med (Lond). 2009;70(10):560-565.

Peripheral arterial disease (PAD) of lower extremities. EBSCO DynaMed Plus website. Available at:http://www.dynamed.com/topics/dmp~AN~T114200/Peripheral-arterial-disease-PAD-of-lower-extremities. Updated August 23, 2018. Accessed August 29, 2018.

Prevention and treatment of PAD. American Heart Association website. Available at: http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/Conditions/More/PeripheralArteryDisease/Prevention-and-Treatment-of-PAD_UCM_301308_Article.jsp. Updated October 31, 2016. Accessed August 30, 2018.

11/4/2013 DynaMed's Systematic Literature Surveillance. Available at:http://www.dynamed.com/topics/dmp~AN~T114200/Peripheral-arterial-disease-PAD-of-lower-extremities: McCaslin JE, Andras A, et al. Cryoplasty for peripheral arterial disease. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2013;8:CD005507.

Last reviewed May 2018 by EBSCO Medical Review Board Daniel A. Ostrovsky, MD