Thousands of patients could be saved the anguish of losing a leg after scientists developed a new technique which may reduce the risk of amputation.
Experts said they have developed a new imaging method which will help doctors see in minute detail how much blood and oxygen a patient's muscles are getting.
They hope the technique will reduce the need for amputations in patients suffering from critical limb ischemia (CLI).
The condition is caused by the blocking of the arteries leading to a patient's leg, resulting in not enough blood and oxygen reaching the leg muscle.
The novel method - published in a study in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology - enables doctors to see whether or not an operation to correct CLI has been successful.
At the moment, the only way medics can see if corrective treatment - usually an operation to bypass a blocked artery or the widening the artery - has been successful is to wait and see whether the leg improves over a number of days or even weeks.
But now British Heart Foundation funded researchers at St Thomas' Hospital in London have developed a new MRI-based mapping technique that assess the effectiveness of the operation immediately afterwards.
The researchers said they hope the imaging method will reduce the need for amputations, which can be needed if blood flow cannot be restored.
At present, around 30 per cent of patients with CLI will need to have a limb amputated.
The study looked at how much blood was reaching the muscles in the legs of 34 people with CLI and in 22 healthy people. Researchers then checked their results against leg muscle biopsies.
Lead researcher Bijan Modarai, consultant in vascular surgery at St Thomas' Hospital, said: "At Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust we treat over 500 people with critical limb ischemia each year.
"By using this new imaging technique we hope to be better placed to offer the best possible treatment to people suffering from this disease and therefore reduce the likelihood of limb amputation."
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