Legs For Life: Fighting Peripheral Arterial Disease

The Society of Interventional Radiology annually sponsors Legs For Life®—a nationwide community health and public information and peripheral arterial disease screening program that began in 1998. Interventional radiologists, vascular experts who treat PAD, recognize that the disease is a major public health problem with a growing incidence.

SIR thanks the staff at the following sites who registered to hold Legs For Life screenings during September’s National PAD Awareness Month.

• Advanced Medical Imaging, Louisville, Colo.
• American Access Care of Baltimore, White Marsh, Md.
• Bayonne Medical Center, Bayonne, N.J.
• CDI Vascular Care, Minneapolis, Minn.
• Coastal Vascular & Interventional Radiology, Pensacola, Fla.
• Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula, Monterey, Calif.
• EPIC Imaging, Beaverton, Ore.
• HealthQare Associates, Arlington, Va.
• Hoboken University Medical Center, Hoboken, N.J.
• Indiana University Health West Hospital, Avon, Ind.
• Interventional and Radiology Physicians, Portland, Maine
• Interventional and Vascular Consultants, PC, Portland, Ore.
• Kadlec Medical Center, Richland, Wash.
• McLeod Regional Medical Center, Florence, S.C.
• Radiology Associates of Venice and Englewood, Venice, Fla.
• Spotsylvania Regional Medical Center, Fredericksburg, Va.
• St. Joseph Mercy Ann Arbor Hospital, Mich.
• Sunnyside Community Hospital, Sunnyside, Wash.
• Texas Health Presbyterian Allen, Allen, Texas
• University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
• Vascular and Interventional Physicians, Portland, Maine
• Virginia Interventional and Vascular Associates, Fredericksburg, Va.

PAD occurs when a person develops atherosclerosis, when plaque forms inside an artery and restricts blood flow. Many symptoms that may be warning signs of PAD are sometimes dismissed as signs of getting older, such as pain in the legs while walking that subsides at rest, numbness and tingling in the lower legs and feet, coldness in the lower legs and feet, and ulcers or sores on the legs or feet that don’t heal.

SIR encourages early detection and management of PAD to prevent the progression of the disease in at-risk individuals. Those at risk include individuals over age 50; smokers; diabetics; those who are overweight and inactive; those with high-blood pressure, high cholesterol or high lipids; or those with a family history of vascular disease (such as PAD, aneurysm, heart attack or stroke). Learn more.

During National Peripheral Arterial Disease Awareness Month, individuals may find limited free Legs For Life screening sites listed at www.LegsForLife.org. 

Many interventional radiologists also offer year-round screenings by appointment and can be found with SIR’s Doctor Finder at http://doctor-finder.SIRweb.org/ (choose “Peripheral Arterial Disease” in the Area of Expertise list). Some Legs For Life centers also screen for risk of other vascular diseases, such as varicose veins, abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) and stroke. Take a test to see if you may be at risk for PAD, AAA or stroke at www.LegsForLife.org.

For a patient video about peripheral arterial disease, visit SIR’s Web site and scroll down to the “Video News Releases” section at www.SIRweb.org/news/videoClips.shtml.

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About Legs For Life

Legs For Life is the largest, longest running and most inclusive national vascular disease screening program in the United States. More than 300,000 people have been screened to date, with one in four found to be at risk for PAD.

About the Society of Interventional Radiology

Interventional radiologists are physicians who specialize in minimally invasive, targeted treatments. They offer the most in-depth knowledge of the least invasive treatments available coupled with diagnostic and clinical experience across all specialties. They use X-ray, MRI and other imaging to advance a catheter in the body, such as in an artery, to treat at the source of the disease internally. As the inventors of angioplasty and the catheter-delivered stent, which were first used in the legs to treat peripheral arterial disease, interventional radiologists pioneered minimally invasive modern medicine. Today, interventional oncology is a growing specialty area of interventional radiology. Interventional radiologists can deliver treatments for cancer directly to the tumor without significant side effects or damage to nearby normal tissue.

Many conditions that once required surgery can be treated less invasively by interventional radiologists. Interventional radiology treatments offer less risk, less pain and less recovery time compared to open surgery. Visit www.SIRweb.org.

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