title: Predictive value of the ankle-brachial index in the evaluation of intermittent claudication.
abstract: The purpose of this study was to determine whether the ankle-brachial index (ABI) could be used to predict the prognosis for a patient with intermittent claudication (IC). We studied 611 patients prospectively during 28 months of follow-up. We analyzed the predictive power of using various levels of ABI - 0.30 to 0.70 at 0.05 increments - in terms of the measure's specificity (association with a favorable outcome after exercise rehabilitation therapy) and sensitivity (association with a poor outcome after exercise rehabilitation therapy). We found that using an ABI of 0.30 as a cut-off value produced the lowest margin of error overall, but the predictive power was still low with respect to identifying the patients with a poor prognosis after non-aggressive therapeutic treatment. Further study is needed to perhaps identify a second factor that could increase the sensitivity of the test.
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, Vascular Surgery Section, Hospital das Clínicas, Faculty of Medicine, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil.
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Wolosker
authors.forename: R A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Rosoky
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Nakano
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Basyches
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Puech-Leão
mesh_terms: D000842:Ankle / Q000098:blood supply*; D001916:Brachial Artery / Q000503:physiopathology*; D006439:Hemodynamics; D006801:Humans; D007383:Intermittent Claudication / Q000503:physiopathology*; D011379:Prognosis; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012039:Regional Blood Flow; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity