Every year in Ontario, over 1,000 people lose a foot or leg to a vascular disease.

This year, however, Frank Scianitti was not one of them. 

“ We consider it a failure if we have to remove someone’s limb,” vascular surgeon Dr. William Johnson tells INsauga Canada.  

Johnson, division head of vascular surgery and a vascular surgeon at William Osler Health System, the health organization that operates hospitals in Brampton and Toronto, told INsauga Canada that his team has worked — and continues to work — to save every leg and foot it can. 

But while Johnson says technology has improved by leaps and bounds in Brampton and beyond, the cross-province statistics still tell a more sombre story. According to a 2024 release from Quinte Health, over 1,200 non-traumatic major lower-limb amputations occur every year in Ontario, and most of them are due to complications of vascular disease, such as peripheral artery disease and diabetes. 

That said, Johnson says he’s optimistic that advances in vascular care not just at Brampton Civic and Etobicoke General, but in vascular medicine more broadly, are helping prevent amputations. 

“This is beneficial for people in our community who might be facing serious problems, might be facing the loss of their limb and a life-altering event,” he says. “We’ve modernized and revolutionized vascular care for the community in the past, I’d say, five to eight years in particular. I wouldn’t say that there’s anything new or novel about the concept, but what has changed is the technology available.” 

In 2018, Brampton Civic announced the opening of its new state-of-the-art endovascular therapeutics suite, a facility that serves as a space for interventional radiology and an operating room. The suite enables Osler’s vascular and endovascular surgeons and radiologists to perform life- and limb-saving procedures in one space, giving patients more seamless access to care.

Scianitti is recovering–all in one piece–after receiving treatment at Brampton Civic for multiple blood clots in his leg. 

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Scianitti, a 76-year-old retiree, said he first got an inkling something was wrong in early 2026 when he flew from Arizona to Calgary and, upon exiting a van at his hotel, heard a ‘pop’ in his left leg. 

“We checked in and at night, the [discomfort] started getting worse and I thought I pulled a muscle or something,” he tells INsauga Canada. 

The discomfort persisted, so that spring, Scianitti booked an appointment with his family doctor. 

“He said, ‘Frank, this is probably a pulled muscle.’ He said to wait a month or two and then check it out.”

But as the weeks went on, the pain persisted and his circulation began to decline. In May, he went to a hospital in Orangeville for an ultrasound and was told he was essentially having “a heart attack in his foot.” 

The doctor referred Scianitti to the vascular team at Brampton Civic for more tests. 

“I’d never been so scared in my life,” he says about his initial consultation with Osler vascular surgeon Dr. John Byrne. “He tells you the truth; he doesn’t hide anything. He said, ‘Frank, you have three blockages.’”

Scianitti said the doctor told him there were a few treatment options, with amputation as the last resort. The team decided to first try the minimally invasive endovascular revascularization technique that would spare his leg and avoid the higher potential morbidity associated with an open surgery. 

“Endo means that we do it from within the artery with minimally invasive techniques, punctures, needles, and wires instead of large incisions, and revascularization means to take an artery that’s not presently flowing and leading to impairment in the blood supply to someone’s leg and try to reopen it,” Johnson explains. 

“It’s almost like trying to turn Niagara Falls back onto the leg so that the tissues can survive, get the blood supply they need to be able to heal and ultimately salvage the leg.” 

Johnson, who was not involved in Scianitti’s care, says that technology used to treat blood clots has continued to improve and that, going forward, he expects less invasive procedures, such as the one Scianitti underwent, to become the gold standard. 

“As we continue down the path towards trying to find safer, minimally invasive ways to revascularize a leg, the technology keeps getting better and better. I suspect that at some point in my career, open surgery will no longer be the mainstay for this,” he says.

In his time at the hospital, Johnson says he’s watched the vascular health team rapidly adapt to new techniques and best practices. 

“When we see a patient with this problem, we’re thinking, ‘What can we do to help them? What can we do to help them in a minimally invasive way? What can we do to help them avoid the major morbidity and mortality associated with bypass surgery?’ So we’re always looking through that lens to see how we can help the patients in the least stressful and least risky way possible.” 

While Scianitti was initially terrified of the possible outcome, he says the procedures he underwent were thoroughly explained, carefully carried out and, as of now, effective. 

While he experienced some pain and discomfort after being released from the hospital, he says he can comfortably walk and has been told during follow-up appointments that the blood clots are not returning and the procedure worked.   

“The bad news is that I have to be on blood thinners twice a day for the rest of my life,” he says, adding that he’s keeping up with exercise and physiotherapy while not pushing himself too hard. 

Scianitti is also relieved that the pain and discomfort that plagued him for weeks is gone. 

“My left leg on the calf side, I couldn’t move it; it felt like pins and needles, and like it was all knotted up,” he says. 

While it can be difficult to say why one person develops blood clots in their arteries and another does not, Johnson says that peripheral artery disease is largely a disease of an aging population and is most common in patients over 60. 

He also says preventing blood clots through healthy habits is paramount.

“There are certain risk factors that we know are associated with people developing these conditions, things like diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, smoking history, kidney disease and kidney failure. There’s also family history, and that’s less modifiable. We can’t change our DNA, but we can change some of the things that we do that may make us more at risk for developing those problems,” he says.

Johnson says the procedure works, but new blood clots can form, and part of Osler’s treatment plan includes educating patients on what they can do at home to keep their vascular health in check. 

For Scianitti, that prevention involves movement. 

“I didn’t exercise a lot after I retired. I golfed, but I was in a cart. Now we live by the Apple Watch,” he says, adding that he feels well on the road to recovery. 

“I feel great, but I’m not 100 per cent yet. My goal is to be at 100 per cent, right now I’m at 70 to 75 per cent.”


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