Critical Limb Ischemia as a Public Health Crisis Peripheral artery disease (PAD) is one of the most common cardiovascular diseases and is associated with high short-term morbidity and mortality. It is the primary cause of lower extremity amputation throughout the world and is a powerful marker of advanced systemic atherosclerosis. Chronic critical limb ischemia (CLI) represents the most advance...

Thromboangiitis obliterans, also known as Buerger’s disease, is a cause of juvenile lower limb ischaemia. Buerger’s disease is idiopathic and one of diagnostic criteria is the absence of atherosclerotic risk factors other than smoking. A possible involvement of thrombophilia has been investigated and the role of hyperhomocysteinemia is still matter of discussion. We describe 9 patients with Bue...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Thromboangiitis obliterans is a common peripheral vascular disease in India. This study was conducted to assess the efficacy of thoracoscopic dorsal sympathectomy as a treatment for Buerger disease of the upper extremities. METHODS Thirty thoracoscopic dorsal sympathectomies (17 left- and 13 right-sided) were performed in a tertiary medical center in 5 women and 20 m...

It is easy to overlook osteochondral lesions (OCLs) of the ankle in patients with chronic lower limb pain, such as complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) or thromboangiitis obliterans (TAO, Buerger's disease). A 57-year-old woman diagnosed with type 1 CRPS, and a 58-year-old man, diagnosed with TAO, complained of tactile and cold allodynia in their lower legs. After neurolytic lumbar sympathethi...

I appreciate the comments of van Veenen et al. Data concerning comparison of pulmonary compliance and effective compliance in the patient receiving mechanical ventilation are needed. Good correlation between these measurements in patients with low compliance documents the simpler estimate of effective compliance as a useful monitoring tool in the patient who is receiving mechanical ventilation ...

Airway colonisation with Pseudomonads, especially Pseudomonas aeruginosa, is common in lung transplant (LTx) recipients. The current authors investigated whether pseudomonal colonisation affects the prevalence of bronchiolitis obliterans syndrome (BOS) after lung transplantation. In the present retrospective study, 92 double (SS)LTx recipients (26 cystic fibrosis (CF) and 66 non-CF patients), w...

Peripheral arterial disease (PAD) is a highly prevalent atherosclerotic syndrome associated with significant morbidity and mortality. PAD is most commonly caused by atherosclerosis obliterans (ASO) and thromboangiitis obliterans (TAO), and can lead to claudication and critical limb ischemia (CLI), often resulting in a need for major amputation and subsequent death. Standard treatment for such s...

BACKGROUND Thromboangiitis obliterans, also known as Buerger's disease, is characterized by peripheral occlusive changes in the arteries of the upper and lower limbs and treatment is often ineffective. Intramuscular transplantation of autologous bone marrow-mononuclear cells (BM-MNC) has been recently reported as improving the symptoms and clinical manifestations in patients with severely ische...

T HE tetraethylammonium ion has been used quite extensively since 1946, when Acheson and Moe1' 2 demonstrated its action as a blocking agent, effective at both sympathetic and parasympathetic ganglions. Earlier, Burn and Dalei and Hunt,4 had described the actions of certain quaternary ammonium bases which included the tetraethylammonium ion.* This drug has been used therapeutically with varying...