An Observational Study on Patients with Acute Limb Ischemia and SARS-CoV-2 Infection: Early and Late Results in Limb Salvage Rate

An observational study on 22 patients presenting with acute limb ischemia and SARS-CoV-2 infection, and without any other embolic risk factors, was performed. All patients were classified according to Rutherford classification for acute limb ischemia. The primary goal of this study was to assess the risk of amputation in these patients after revascularization procedures. The secondary goal was to find the correlation between acute limb ischemia (ALI) severity, patient comorbidities, risk of death, and the association of SARS-CoV-2 infection. The patients were treated by open surgery (18 patients-81.81%) or by the means of endovascular techniques (four patients-18.18%). The amputation-free survival rate was 81.81% in hospital and 86.36% at 1-month follow-up. In this study, the presence of SARS-CoV-2 infection did not influence the amputation-free survival rate: it was only the risk factor for the arterial thrombosis and the trigger for the acute ischemic event. The application of the standard treatment-open surgery or endovascular revascularization-in patients with acute limb ischemia and SARS-CoV-2 infection represents the key to success for lower limb salvage.