Background: Acute leg ischaemia is both life threatening and limb threatening. This audit was designed to determine the incidence and outcome of acute leg ischaemia in a single county.
Methods: Using multisource data collection for a 1-year interval in 1994 all patients with acute leg ischaemia were identified prospectively using hospital and general practice records in the county of Gloucestershire, population 540,000.
Results: Seventy-seven patients with 84 events of acute leg ischaemia were identified, giving an incidence of one per 7000 per year rising to one per 6000 per year when bypass graft occlusions were included. All but four patients were treated in hospital. Sixteen of 80 hospital events involved conservative treatment; after 30 days nine patients had died and two required amputation. The remaining five patients had borderline ischaemic rest pain and accepted their symptoms without intervention. Sixty-four of 80 events were managed by either primary surgery and angioplasty (n = 31) or thrombolysis (n = 33). The 30-day outcome in patients treated actively was: limb salvage in 50 (78 per cent), amputation in four (6 per cent) and death in ten (16 per cent).
Conclusion: In Gloucestershire almost all cases of acute leg ischaemia are managed by, or discussed with vascular surgeons. A flexible integrated policy of surgery and peripheral thrombolysis has resulted in a limb salvage rate of 78 per cent in patients suitable for active treatment.