Abstract:

Background: Amputation of limbs is one of the oldest surgical procedure with artificial limbs identified from over 2000 years ago. The prevalence of etiological factors leading to amputation vary among different populations. The worldwide prevalence of amputation range from 3.1-5.8 per 100,000 persons. Peripheral vascular disease (PVD) is a major cause of limb amputation in developed countries. However, road traffic accidents (RTA), uncontrolled diabetes mellitus and malignancies are the leading causes of amputation in developing countries. Many studies conducted on amputation focused more on the lower limb amputation and their etiological factors our setting.

Methodology: This study was a retrospective cross section study done at Bugando medical centre from August 2016 to August 2020 involving 114 patients with amputated limbs at BMC during study period. Data were collected retrospectively from patients’ medical files and analysed using SPSS version 20.0

Results: A total of 114 patients were recruited into the study. Age ranged from 1 to 100 years with a median age of 41-50 year the prevalence of limb amputation is 1.008%. Male predominated female with 76 patients (66.7%). The most common for Limb amputation were diabetes mellitus (35.1%), trauma (31.6%), and peripheral vascular diseases (14%). Majority of amputations involved lower limb amputation with 81.6% of all cases. Moreover, below knee amputation was the most performed with 47.37% followed by above knee amputation occupied 31.21%. Amputation which performed as elective procedure contained majority of cases (55.3%) compared to emergency amputation (44.7%)