Prognostic Significance of Distal Blood Pressure Measurements in Patients with Severe Ischaemia

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Abstract
The clinical course was followed and the ankle and toe blood pressures were measured with the strain gauge technique on 5 occasions during 2 years in 43 patients with pain at rest and/or ischaemic ulceration due to severe ischaemia of the legs on the basis of occlusive arterial disease. Although arteriosclerosis of the legs in non-diabetic patients is generally considered a benign disease from the standpoint of limb survival, the critical level of TPI (systolic toe blood pressure/systolic arm blood pressure) was found to be 0.07 as a TPI below this value was associated with an overall 82% risk of amputation. With TPI above 0.07, the chance of successful conservative therapy was about 40%. Diabetics with severe ischaemia must be regarded as a high risk group in respect of amputation (64%) and lethality (64%). A variance analysis was made on the pressure data: In patients with low pressure peripheral vascular beds, the TPI must change more than 0.15 units from one examination to another before the alteration can be considered significant at the 99% confidence level.