Prevalence of Symptomatic and Asymptomatic Peripheral Arterial Disease and the Value of the Ankle-Brachial Index to Stratify Cardiovascular Risk

摘要

The base for this study was 6,172 volunteers aged 35-79 recruited in the province of Girona in northeastern Spain during 2005 and 2006. The group consisted of 3,269 women with a mean age of 55.9 years and 2,903 men with a mean age of 56.6. The volunteers were asked to fast for 10-14 hours before presenting. At presentation, they completed the Edinburgh questionnaire, which identifies claudication. A trained nurse measured their blood pressure twice over a 20-minute period. Height and weight were obtained and body mass index was calculated as weight divided by height squared (kg/m2). Blood was drawn for diabetes and cholesterol determinations. Patients were classified as current smokers if they smoked or quit less than a year ago, as former smokers if they quit more than a year ago, and as those who had never smoked. A patient was classified as having diabetes if he or she had a history of diabetes or a fasting glycemia > 125 mg/dl. A Doppler device (SONICAID 421, Oxford Instruments) was used to measure systolic blood pressure in the brachial artery in the antecubital fossa in both arms and in the right and left posterior and anterior tibial arteries. Right and left ABIs were calculated, but only the lower value was used in the analysis. An ABI < 0.90 was considered to indicate moderate to high cardiovascular risk and an ABI in the range from 0.90-1.39 was considered normal.