![\"\"](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/DAddario-Pre-Op-5-1024x768.jpg\")
\u201cI had no idea what was going on,\u201d Marchetti recounts. But after a few trips to the emergency department, her doctors referred her directly to the Division of Vascular and Endovascular Surgery at UConn Health.<\/a><\/p>\nIt turns out that unknowingly and surprisingly, Marchetti\u2019s longtime smoking habit was catching up to her, and all the way down to her toes.<\/p>\n
She was diagnosed with severe peripheral arterial disease (PAD), which causes significant blood vessel blockages and hardening of the arteries in her legs dangerously, restricting blood flow. The major risk factors for the circulatory PAD condition are aging, diabetes, and smoking.<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew smoking was bad, but never this bad,\u201d says Marchetti. \u201cI never realized smoking could do this much harm to my leg arteries and blood flow down to my toes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, vascular surgeons needed to amputate all the toes on Marchetti\u2019s right foot in May 2023 because of the advancement and severity of her PAD.<\/p>\n
But again recently, Marchetti noticed a change in her other left foot.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy left foot\u2019s toes started to turn purple too,\u201d says Marchetti, who was expecting to soon have a big, open leg artery bypass surgery intervention with surgeons taking a vein from her right leg to help restore blood flow inside her PAD inflicted left leg.<\/p>\n But thankfully just in time, an alternate treatment route and brand-new tool arrived in New England at UConn Health in Farmington.<\/p>\n On January 25, Marchetti underwent a successful DETOUR<\/a> procedure with Dr. Justin D\u2019Addario<\/a> and the vascular team at UConn John Dempsey Hospital. It was the first-ever alternative procedure of its kind in New England.<\/p>\n Marchetti is thankful for the minimally invasive innovative treatment path she was offered and received at UConn Health and having the opportunity to avoid major leg open surgery, months of recovery, vein retrieval from her other leg, and also avoiding a large surgical scar down her entire leg.<\/p>\n \u201cMy UConn Health surgeons and I are pretty excited about this new cool procedure! I got to go home the day after, and just take it easy for a few days after,\u201d says Marchetti. \u201cThanks to the vascular surgeons, so much burden is now off my shoulders and my legs. Having this burden off of me is the biggest relief.\u201d<\/p>\n She adds: \u201cI now have no more fear of losing all my toes. I am so happy the surgeons could minimally invasively hitchhike onto another vein in my leg to fix my blockage and blood flow. It also gives me the goosebumps that I am the first patient in New England to benefit from the new technology.\u201d<\/p>\n This February Heart Month, Marchetti wants everyone to take care of their cardiovascular health including by quitting smoking which she has done.<\/p>\n \u201cMy number one message is to stop smoking and suffering smoking\u2019s penalties. I was rudely awakened with smoking\u2019s extended impact with a PAD diagnosis. Beware. Smoking can cause you to lose your toes, your feet, and your legs – all because of smoking cigarettes!\u201d<\/p>\n Marchetti\u2019s husband Jim Marchetti is so grateful for his wife\u2019s minimally invasive procedure and health journey success at UConn Health.<\/p>\n \u201cThis procedure is changing our whole life,\u201d says Jim. \u201cWe are looking forward to getting back to normal.\u201d<\/p>\n He concludes: \u201cThank goodness for innovation and the doctors at UConn Health.\u201d<\/p>\n The Marchetti family shares their heartfelt thanks with UConn Health stating: \u201cThe whole vascular team at UConn Health is wonderful!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe are thrilled to be able to now minimally invasively help severe and complex PAD patients like Maureen avoid losing toes and limbs \u2013 and look forward to helping more patients with these very successful, positive outcomes. The new medical device system treatment option is a real game-changer allowing us to perform minimally invasive endovascular femoral-popliteal bypasses and avoiding traditional open leg surgery,\u201d says UConn Health\u2019s Dr. Justin D\u2019Addario, the vascular surgeon who performed the first DETOUR case in New England.<\/p>\n During the less invasive Percutaneous Transmural Arterial Bypass (PTAB), via the superficial femoral artery (SFA), vascular surgeons at UConn Health guided a thin catheter through Marchetti\u2019s femoral artery, to precisely navigate the device around her blocked femoral-popliteal region, utilizing the femoral vein to deploy the detouring stent graft. The DETOUR procedure\u2019s alternate route using the femoral vein allows for the targeted, more localized intervention to restore blood flow throughout the leg.<\/p>\n The DETOUR System, made by Endologix, won Breakthrough Device Designation from the FDA in 2020 and in June 2023 received FDA approval.<\/em><\/p>\n The risk factors, and signs and symptoms of PAD are:<\/strong><\/p>\n Maureen Marchetti was the first patient in New England to be offered an alternative to major open leg artery bypass surgery with a new technology called DETOUR <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":98,"featured_media":209004,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2231,2294,2235,179,2195],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[1873],"class_list":["post-208883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-well-being","category-all-surgery","category-today-homepage","category-uconn-health","category-windham-county"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-11 00:53:28","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/98"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208883"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208883\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":211216,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208883\/revisions\/211216"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/209004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208883"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=208883"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=208883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"DETOUR](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/DETOUR-blood-flow-restored-PQ-Bypass-Revisions-9-copy-471x1024.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/DETOUR-video-animation-Capture-1024x897.jpg\")
![\"PAD](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/PAS-awareness-infographic-Picture1-1024x489.png\")