ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION Given the rapid development time of new techniques in a field as technical as this one, it is useful to separate those things that are likely to be enduring from those that are heavily device specific. Currently, endoluminal intervention is an exciting field precisely because of the rapid development of techniques and instrumentation. Therefore, a rigid hierarchy of techniques is likely to become anachronistic very quickly. A monograph on distinctions in clinical presentation is likely to be more enduring, but there is no way to write a chapter like this without a clear focus on instrumentation, at least at the level of different device “families” that have been developed with different clinical situations in mind. What follows is a series of observations and data, which help guide our personal choice of interventions in the patient with a disease below the knee.
