Maarit A Heikkinen, Juha P Salenius, Jukka P Saarinen, Jari Laurikka, Riina Metsänoja, Rainer Zeitlin, Velipekka Suominen, Ossi Auvinen
{"title":"Regional differences in the use of a vascular surgical service and incidence of amputations in a well-defined geographical area.","authors":"Maarit A Heikkinen, Juha P Salenius, Jukka P Saarinen, Jari Laurikka, Riina Metsänoja, Rainer Zeitlin, Velipekka Suominen, Ossi Auvinen","doi":"","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Objective: </strong>To evaluate regional differences in the use of a vascular surgical service in the treatment of critical lower limb ischaemia and incidence of amputation in the 1990s in a well-defined geographical area.</p><p><strong>Design: </strong>Retrospective study.</p><p><strong>Setting: </strong>One university and five county hospitals, Finland.</p><p><strong>Subjects: </strong>All referrals to the university hospital vascular surgical unit for chronic critical lower limb ischaemia and the number of major amputations in the region.</p><p><strong>Main outcome measures: </strong>Numbers of new vascular surgical consultations and amputations in 11 municipalities. Correlation between numbers of consultations and amputations.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Between the subregions the age-standardised incidence of new vascular surgical consultations in the 15-85 year old population varied from 52.4 to 104.7/10(5) and the incidence of amputation from 10.2 to 24.8/10(5). There was an inverse correlation between the numbers of consultations and amputations. The most significant inverse correlation was between consultations and below knee amputations in diabetic patients (r = -0.70). For above knee amputations there was no correlation (r = -0.21).</p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>An active referral policy leads to reduced amputation rates.</p>","PeriodicalId":22411,"journal":{"name":"The European journal of surgery = Acta chirurgica","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2002-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"The European journal of surgery = Acta chirurgica","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Objective: To evaluate regional differences in the use of a vascular surgical service in the treatment of critical lower limb ischaemia and incidence of amputation in the 1990s in a well-defined geographical area.
Design: Retrospective study.
Setting: One university and five county hospitals, Finland.
Subjects: All referrals to the university hospital vascular surgical unit for chronic critical lower limb ischaemia and the number of major amputations in the region.
Main outcome measures: Numbers of new vascular surgical consultations and amputations in 11 municipalities. Correlation between numbers of consultations and amputations.
Results: Between the subregions the age-standardised incidence of new vascular surgical consultations in the 15-85 year old population varied from 52.4 to 104.7/10(5) and the incidence of amputation from 10.2 to 24.8/10(5). There was an inverse correlation between the numbers of consultations and amputations. The most significant inverse correlation was between consultations and below knee amputations in diabetic patients (r = -0.70). For above knee amputations there was no correlation (r = -0.21).
Conclusion: An active referral policy leads to reduced amputation rates.