Outcomes of Drug Coated Balloon Angioplasty for Femoropopliteal Lesions in Patients With Critical Limb Ischemia

Critical limb ischemia (CLI) is the most advanced stage of peripheral artery disease (PAD); which is estimated to affect more than 200 million people worldwide.(1) CLI classified as Rutherford category (RC) 4-6, includes ischemic rest pain and tissue loss.(2) The first line revascularization strategy for patients with CLI is endovascular percutaneous transluminal angioplasty (PTA).(3) The treatment of femoropopliteal lesions displays a huge anatomic challenge as this segment serves various biomechanical functions, Which makes endovascular treatment is challenging.(4) Plain balloon (PB) angioplasty for femoropopliteal artery disease has a high rate of procedural success and an acceptable safety profile, in spite of initially encouraging technical success after femoropopliteal (PTA), postprocedural restenosis remains the major challenge(5) Excessive extracellular matrix material synthesized by activated smooth muscle cells (SMC) in the media of the arteries leads to Neointimal hyperplasia and restenosis.(6) Restenosis resulting in loss of primary patency, late lumen loss (LLL), occlusion and/or the need for target lesion revascularization (TLR).(7) Drug-coated balloons (DCBs) inhibit the neointimal hyperplasia, the biological mechanism of restenosis formation, by application of cytostatic agents in a local therapeutic concentration.(8) The antiproliferative paclitaxel (PTX) seems to be the most effective therapeutic agent for DCBs due to local retention in the arterial wall.(9)