THURSDAY, Sept. 5, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- A new interactive map has been created by the American Heart Association (AHA) to illustrate the risk for leg, foot, or toe amputations due to peripheral artery disease (PAD) in different regions of the United States.
Mississippi has the highest risk for lower limb amputation, followed by Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, and South Carolina, the Non-Traumatic Lower Extremity Amputations by Congressional District Heat Map shows.
"Increasing knowledge surrounding peripheral artery disease and the potential complication of lower limb amputation is vital, especially considering many people who are at high risk don't even know what PAD is," said investigator Marc Bonaca, M.D., chair of cardiovascular research with the University of Colorado School of Medicine.
Annually, about 150,000 leg amputations occur in the United States due to PAD or other health problems, researchers said.
For the new map, developed by the AHA and other organizations, researchers used 2017 and 2018 data from Medicare and the U.S. Census Bureau to track rates of leg and foot amputations. Rural residents, the poor, and Black and Native American people have the greatest risk for amputation, researchers found.
PAD affects as many as 12 million people in the United States, and Black people are twice as likely to develop the condition, researchers said.
"Much of the amputation data we are seeing is not surprising, yet the map helps us confirm and illustrate what we suspected in terms of where the biggest issues are," Bonaca said in an AHA news release. "When patients with PAD and their health teams advocate for themselves, we can share a firm message that this is a public health issue, and it is preventable."
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