The radiologists used angiography, an X-ray of the blood  vessels, to confirm loss of blood flow in the severely  frostbitten hands and feet of 17 patients. They threaded catheters into the arteries to directly  deliver clot-busting drugs to dissolve the blood clots and  anti-spasmodics to relax the arteries. This helped 90 percent of the patients, they told a meeting  in Washington of the Society of Interventional Radiology. “Previously, severe frostbite was a one-way route to limb  loss. This treatment is a significant improvement.” said Dr.  George Edmonson, an interventional radiologist with St. Paul  Radiology in St. Paul, Minnesota, who worked on the study. “We’re opening arteries that are blocked so that tissues  can heal and limbs can be salvaged. We were able to reopen even  the smallest arteries, saving patients’ fingers and toes,”  Edmonson added. Severe frostbite can block blood flow and cause small clots  to form. These clots can worsen already slowed blood flow. “For half our patients who received the clot-busting drug  Tenectaplase, this technique worked beautifully, saving all  fingers, hands, toes and feet that otherwise would have been  lost,” said Edmonson. “Overall, in about 80 percent of the cases, it  significantly improved patients’ outcomes. Within one to three  days of treatment, we saw improvement.”
Clot-busting drugs save limbs from frostbite.