Doctors using a razor the size of a grain of rice are shearing ribbons of yellowish sludge from inside clogged leg arteries. It’s the latest therapy for a hard-to-treat disease that slowly chokes off blood flow in millions of people’s legs. And the shavings it extracts are more than icky evidence of illness: A drug giant is buying this plaque for research on how to keep arteries from clogging in the first place.Peripheral artery disease, or PAD, afflicts at least 12 million Americans as their leg arteries stiffen and narrow. Eventually, the lack of blood flow to muscles causes an aching pain while walking, called claudication. In severe cases, patients can hobble no more than a block or two.
