ABSTRACT
Atherosclerosis of the lower extremities or peripheral vascular disease (PVD) is common and is a disease of the elderly. While pathologic changes that are precursors of atherosclerosis can be identified in children, clinically significant PVD is rare before the seventh decade. The incidence of clinically detectable atherosclerosis is surprisingly high in the elderly population. In the Rotterdam Study, the prevalence of PVD (ankle brachial index (ABI) values were <0.9) was 19.1% [1]. However, a majority of patients in this study were asymptomatic. Only 1.6% of the total study population had symptoms of intermittent claudication and only 6.3% of the patients with clinically detectable PVD had symptoms of claudication [1]. These rates are very similar to the rates of PVD and claudication found in other studies [2-4]. In the Rotterdam study, rates of clinically detectable PVD and intermittent claudication increased with increasing age (see Figure 10.1) [1].
