Predictive value of the ankle-brachial index in the evaluation of intermittent claudication.
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.
Wolosker
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N
Department of Surgery, Vascular Surgery Section, Hospital das Clínicas, Faculty of Medicine, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Rosoky
R A
RA
Nakano
L
L
Basyches
M
M
Puech-Leão
P
P
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