Gangrene of the foot: a complication of phlebography.

One believes there is a necessity to bring to widespread attention a most serious complication of what is often considered a mundane radiological examination - lower extremity contrast venography. So mundane is it considered in fact, that outside of resident teaching programs, an informal telephone survey of 15 hospitals from 240 beds to 780 beds revealed that a number of injections and examinations: (a) were conducted entirely by technologists without any pretense of radiologist supervision; (b) that the radiologist "supervised" the injection (i.e. was in the "immediate vicinity") or; (c) injection was preferentially done by the radiologist, but no reason was seen why a skilled non-physician could not conduct the examination.