Abdominal aortic surgery: prevention of lower limb ischemia.

Lower limb ischemia represents the most common single threat to the success of operations for abdominal aortic aneurysms. It can occur because of distal embolization from a number of sites or because of thrombosis either at sites of anastamosis or in diseased arteries at or beyond sites of clamping. Preoperative angiographic studies in patients with missing lower extremity pulses aid in planning reconstructive procedures if ischemia occurs in the postoperative period. Systemic heparinization during the stage of interruption of the circulation and specific techniques of dissection, clamping, anastamosis, flushing, and unclamping resulted in an incidence of 0.57% postoperative limb-threatening ischemia in a series of 700 abdominal aneurysm operations in which the incidence of lower limb gangrene was 0.28%.