Clinical and vascular laboratory assessment of peripheral vascular disease

INTRODUCTION Diabetic patients have at least a four times greater risk for developing peripheral vascular disease (PVD) than does the general population (1). Indeed, an estimated 45% of individuals with diabetes mellitus will acquire clinically significant PVD after 20 years of disease onset (2). Diabetic individuals have an 11 times greater risk than the general population for developing critical limb ischemia (1). Indeed, PVD tends to manifest with greater severity in diabetes mellitus compared with other etiologies of PVD, such as smoking, hyperlipidemia, and hypertension (3).