Peripheral artery disease (PAD) affects \>200 millionadults worldwide and is amajor cause of morbidity ranging from exertional lower extremity pain to ischemic rest pain and ulcer formation.
Endovascular treatment options for PAD have increased dramatically in the past several decades. The traditional endovascular treatment of severe PAD has been balloon angioplasty with or without adjunctive stenting.
The outcomes of balloon angioplasty and stenting are acceptable for short lesion lengths in the superficial femoral artery (SFA) and proximal popliteal arteries.Therefore, there is an established need for technologies that can adequately treat more complex femoropopliteal lesions.
Endovascular atherectomy has emerged as a novel technique for atheroma removal in patients with disease of the SFA or popliteal arteries. Atherectomy offers the advantages of surgical endarterectomy by removing atherosclerotic plaque while remaining a minimally invasive and percutaneous treatment.