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Helping Patients With Peripheral Artery Disease Get Back on Their Feet

Former public works foreman Michael Cobb is used to an active lifestyle. The retired Marine and chairman of Rolling Thunder loves to visit with veterans and participates in veterans’

Cobb, 60, of Clinton, was diagnosed with peripheral artery disease (PAD) – a cardiovascular disease that restricts or blocks blood flow in the legs. Blockages or hardening of the arteries occur when plaque or calcium builds up along artery walls.
“I’d walk just a block and it would become numb,” says Cobb. “As time wore on, I had to stop and rest more frequently and even stop walking altogether.”
If left untreated, blockages can lead to sores that heal slowly or don’t heal at all, which is exactly what Rose Tinsman experienced.
“I had an infection on my toe that wasn’t healing because of the restricted blood flow,” recalls the 86-year-old Dunellen resident. “It was very painful and it kept me from walking.”
PAD affects about 12 million people in the United States and more than half experience leg pain, numbness or other symptoms.
“Many people suffering from PAD are undiagnosed,” says interventional cardiologist Parag Patel, MD. “People attribute the aches and pains to the normal aging process. If they don’t see their physician, PAD can cause tissue in the affected area to die.”
Traditional treatment options for PAD include bypass surgery, balloon angioplasty and medication. Two new minimally invasive treatment options recently introduced at Somerset Medical Center are laser ablation, which uses heat to eliminate blockages within peripheral arteries, and cryoplasty, in which a balloon filled with nitrous oxide is threaded through the artery. The nitrous oxide turns into a cold gas that freezes and shatters the blockage to open clogged arteries. Laser ablation is like using fire to treat PAD, while cryoplasty’s cold gas is the ice. Interventional cardiologists and surgeons perform both procedures.
With laser ablation, the Spectranetics Excimer laser produces bursts of ultraviolet light that vaporize blockages into tiny particles that are easily absorbed into the blood stream. Somerset Medical Center is one of only three hospitals in New Jersey to offer laser ablation.
“The procedure takes very little time – usually only one or two hours,” says interventional cardiologist Jeff Taylor, MD, who performed the first laser ablation on Tinsman in Somerset Medical Center’s Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory in May. “Patients can be discharged the same or next day, experience less pain and typically only require one or two days of recovery. They can return to their normal lives in a short period of time.”
Cobb also found success with the procedure, which was performed at Somerset Medical Center by Dr. Patel in May.
“It was easy, quick and there have been no side affects,” he says. “The staff was very professional and caring.”
Somerset Medical Center’s Chief of Surgery Edward Buch, MD, performed cryoplasty on Ed Martin of Hillsborough earlier this year to clear blockages in his legs.
“Before the procedure, I couldn’t walk a short distance without having extreme pain in my calves,” Martin says. “I’m working on restoring the muscles in my legs and soon I’m planning to renovate my house. I couldn’t do that before.”
“With cryoplasty, patients don’t require stents or invasive surgery,” Dr. Buch says. “Recovery is quick and the procedure can be performed on an outpatient basis. Patients experience almost immediate relief.”
An additional measure to treat PAD is bypass surgery, where a surgeon replaces the section of the blocked artery with a graft or bypass using a vein or an artificial blood vessel, says Dr. Buch.
If you have been diagnosed with PAD, talk to your doctor to determine whether bypass surgery or a minimally invasive option, such as cryoplasty or laser ablation, is right for you. Your doctor may recommend bypass surgery if you have a near total or long blockage.
To learn more about PAD and treatment options available at Somerset Medical Center, visit somersetmedicalcenter.com. For a physician referral, call 800-443-4605.
– Amy S. Bobrowski