[Loss of the extremity despite patent vascular reconstruction].

This retrospective study concerns 8 patients, who had successful vascular reconstruction for ischaemia of a lower extremity but nevertheless needed lower or upper leg amputation. The analysis shows that in four patients (one of them diabetic) misjudgement was the cause of failure. The other four patients all had diabetic angiopathy. No misjudgement or wrong decision was found in the analysis of their case. Here the failure is interpreted as the fatal destiny of a seriously damaged microangiopathic extremity.