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In younger patients, lower extremity revascularization is performed to prevent limb loss and improve ambulation, but its value might be different in older nursing home residents. In this retrospective cohort study, researchers used Medicare databases to identify 10,784 nursing home residents (mean age, 82; mostly white women; 75% nonambulatory) who underwent lower extremity revascularization. Two thirds of procedures were performed electively, and more than half were endovascular.
At 1 year after surgery, 51% of patients had died. In a subset of 1672 patients who were ambulatory before surgery, 62% had died or were nonambulatory at 1 year. In adjusted analyses, the strongest associations with poor clinical outcomes (i.e., death or nonambulat…