High Tech Tools from Vascular Institute Save Limbs and Lives

CHATTANOOGA, TN – Dr. Chris LeSar joins us this week on Tech Byte to talk about Orbital Atherectomy.  It sounds like a big scary word, but I told him I thought it was a fancy word for a high tech Dremel tool he has.

According to our favorite Doctor, “The Atherectomy is a, a technique where we remove blockages from inside an artery. You can have a minimally invasive or maximally invasive, maximally invasive surgery. Minimally invasive is what we’re going to talk about today,” says Dr. LeSar.

Dr. Lesar and his wife are personal friends of mine, and he always jokes that he’s a plumber and fixes and cleans pipes.  Few people realize that he’s one of the top surgeons in the world in his field, so I always laugh that he calls himself a plumber.

“Orbital Atherectomy is a, a device that we use or a technique that we use to sand or grind away the, the plaques that build up inside arteries and by gently sanding the plaque away and preventing damage to the rest of the artery,” says Dr. LeSar. “We can establish more blood flow into a patient’s leg to help them heal a wound or have more circulation to walk better.”

The visuals you’ll have to see in the video but they’re of a surgery he did that morning with this device. The work he did today will end up saving her lower leg from amputation and let some of her wounds heal with proper blood flow.  He would tell you it’s not always lifesaving but I can assure you his patients feel differently.

For more information you can watch the video or you can visit them at www.vascularinstituteofchattanooga.com