Breakthrough Treatment For Severe Frostbite Saves Limbs

Using imaging to visualize areas lacking blood flow and deliver drugs via catheter, interventional radiologists are reopening recently frozen, clotted arteries with clot-busting and anti-spasmodic drugs. The people in a recent prospective trial had severely frostbitten hands and feet (with tissue frozen to the bone and damage occurring deep in muscles, tendons, nerves and blood vessels). Typically this leads to gangrene and loss of limbs. In severe frostbite, the blood vessels are affected and blood flow is blocked. After thawing and re-warming, small clots form. Spasm of the injured arteries further impedes flow to the smallest vessels of the limbs.

The standard treatment for frostbite -- typically involving re-warming the affected area and, in severe cases, amputation -- hasn't changed for decades. Interventional radiologists used angiography, an X-ray exam of the arteries and veins, to confirm loss of blood flow to a patients hand or toes, then intra-arterial catheters to directly deliver drugs to dissolve the blood clots and relax the arteries' muscular walls. This treatment was significantly successful in preventing amputation and saving limbs, according to a study released at the Society of Interventional Radiology's 33rd Annual Scientific Meeting.

source: MedicalNewsToday