[Screening for atherothrombosis at the doctor's office: role of blood pressure measurement at the ankle]

Abstract

Peripheral artery disease (PAD) is frequently overlooked because of its silent evolution for quite a long period and because it has not been considered as harmful as other atherothrombosis complications such as myocardial infarction or stroke. PAD is readily diagnosed by measuring the ankle brachial index (ABI). A reduced ABI is able to identify an asymptomatic PAD in a high risk patient and provides a very valuable predictor of cardiovascular events allowing to better profile the individual risk of the patient. The awareness of PAD as a mark of a generalized atherothrombosis disease holds the potential to increase the doctor's view of the true individual risk of his patient and to enforce cardiovascular risk prevention as suggested by recent studies.