Establishing an Evaluation System and Limb-Salvage Protocol for Mangled Lower Extremities in China.

Road traffic accident-related severely injured extremities account for the majority of disabilities in young people in China. Limb-salvage concepts and techniques vary greatly from physician to physician and from district to district in China. Current severity-scoring systems for lower-extremity injuries lack sensitivity and cannot be used as the sole criterion by which amputation decisions are made. China lacks a national database of mangled lower extremities, which is a priority for both limb-salvage protocols and scoring system development.