Limb Salvage & Restoration Center

Certain medical conditions, including peripheral artery disease, venous disease, and diabetic foot ulcers, can lead to serious conditions that affect the limbs, particularly the legs and feet. When this happens, highly specialized medical and surgical care is often needed to avoid amputation and preserve quality of life.

At NYU Langone’s Limb Salvage and Restoration Center, our specialists use advanced techniques to restore healthy blood flow, promote healing, and prevent limb loss. This includes minimally invasive and surgical approaches to improve circulation and blood flow to the affected limb. We also provide the newest wound-healing treatments and offer clinical trials for promising therapies.

Your treatment is coordinated by a team that includes experts in vascular surgery, wound care, podiatry, plastic surgery, infectious diseases, and rehabilitation. Our goal is to provide you with coordinated care that is focused on healing the source of illness and preventing limb loss whenever possible. If after considering all other treatment options, amputation is required, we use surgical techniques to preserve limb function and achieve the best possible performance with prosthetic devices.

Arterial Treatment

For people with peripheral arterial disease, our vascular surgeons use minimally invasive surgical techniques to remove blockages affecting blood flow to the limbs. This includes atherectomy to remove plaque that is blocking an artery, and balloon angioplasty and stenting to open a narrowed or clogged artery. Our vascular surgeons also perform arterial bypass to reroute blood around the blockage. In some cases, treatment involves a combination of these techniques.

Vein Treatment

When blood flow back to the heart is blocked due to chronic venous insufficiency or deep vein thrombosis, blood can start to pool in the legs. This can cause blood clots, pain, itching, and leg sores. Treatment may involve a combination of procedures to eliminate venous reflux caused by leaky valves that allow blood to flow in both directions, and procedures to open blocked deep veins. This includes heat-based therapies, such as laser and radiofrequency, as well as nonthermal therapies, such as special glue or foam, to treat problematic surface veins. It also includes treatments to remove blood clots, and balloon angioplasty and stenting to open blocked deep veins.

Wound Healing

We work with experts from the Helen L. and Martin S. Kimmel Hyperbaric and Advanced Wound Healing Center to provide comprehensive and advanced wound care. This includes advanced dermal products that help close wounds; total contact casting, which encases the wound and keeps weight off the foot as it heals; hyperbaric oxygen therapy, which delivers concentrated oxygen to the wound; and plastic surgery reconstruction to remove diseased bone or tissue.

Foot Care

Our podiatrists are experts in the medical and surgical management of the foot. We provide debridement to remove diseased tissue and help foot ulcers heal. When amputation is needed, we first aim to restore health to as much tissue as possible to limit the scope of the surgery.

Limb Restoration Techniques

When amputation is the best treatment option, our surgical team uses advanced techniques to preserve as much of the limb as possible. Working with our prosthetics experts, we develop a surgical plan that preserves nerve function and restores function with the use of the most technologically advanced prosthetic devices. Following surgery, we refer you for care in the limb loss rehabilitation program at Rusk Rehabilitation.