The Society for Vascular Surgery® is committed to developing and participating in innovative methods to evaluate new treatments for patients with critical limb ischemia (CLI), a significant source of death and disability.
Limb dysfunction, pain, ulceration, and advanced comorbidities render CLI patients extremely vulnerable in considering the safety and effectiveness of new treatments. The evaluation of new devices targeting the CLI population presents major challenges in clinical trial design. The CLI Performance Goals Work Group was appointed by SVS in December 2007 to define a set of risk-stratified objective performance goals that may be considered appropriate for the evaluation of new endovascular and minimally invasive therapies for CLI.
Over the course of the year-long project, the group’s work was informed by a series of collaborative discussions with members of the Federal Drug Administration Peripheral Devices Branch, Division of Cardiovascular Devices, Center for Devices and Radiological Health.
The CLI Performance Goals Work Group has created a separate Web site (www.criticallimb.org) to provide more detailed information and results.
Posted January 2010