The large study shows that there is little difference in the outcome for patients with severe leg injury whether they have amputation or leg reconstruction.
There has been an increasing trend towards trying to repair a severely injured leg as an alternative to amputation. But it has not been clear how the two treatments compare to one another.
Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health have co-ordinated the large-scale prospective study on this subject. This reveals that there is really very little difference in outcome between leg reconstruction and leg amputation. What is of major concern is that, within each group, around 40 per cent remain severely disabled and half of these can return to work. Evidently more needs to be done by way of rehabilitation. Given that many patients do prefer to keep their limb, the study is good news - for it shows that leg repair and reconstruction is, at least, as good as an amputation - which some find too drastic a prospect.
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