Wednesday, December 27, 2000

Better treatments for sufferers of peripheral vascular disease offers pain relief for patients

Peripheral Vascular Disease (PVD) affects the lifestyle of more than one million people in the United States each year.

An early symptom of PVD is leg pain while walking. More advanced cases express symptoms of exercise-induced numbness, rest pain, tissue loss, infection or gangrene.

Risk factors for PVD include smoking, diabetes, hypertension, obesity, elevated cholesterol, inactive lifestyle and family history of the disease.

In the past, if disease management and smoking cessation did not work, the only other approach to treatment was surgical. Today, however, Interventional Radiologists offer alternatives such as balloon angioplasty, stenting and clot-dissolving medications to control and often eliminate PVD symptoms. The balloon angioplasty procedure involves a catheter with a balloon attached to the end. Once doctors identify the problem in the artery, they inflate the balloon to push a plaque against the arterior wall, sometimes using a metal mesh device, or stent, to keep the plaque in place.

Garrett G. Ward, M.D. is among the interventional radiologists at Southern Regional Medical Center who has had great success with this procedure.

"This technique is administered through a small arterial puncture site so there is no scarring, and the risks associated with general anesthesia are eliminated." There is only a one-day recuperation and fewer complications.

"Those who suffer from symptoms of PVD should know that there are available alternatives to surgery that can treat, or even cure their condition," says Ward.

Southern Regional Health System provides comprehensive health resources including: Southern Regional Medical Center, a 410-bed, full-service hospital in Riverdale featuring a state-of-the-art outpatient surgery center, a women's center and one of the busiest and best emergency departments in the state; RiverWoods, Southern Regional Psychiatric Center, a psychiatric facility with a complete continuum of behavioral care services; Southern Regional Homecare, a home health agency providing home health services and home medical equipment and Surgery Center at Mt. Zion, a multi-specialty surgery center in Morrow.