Incidence and prevalence of clinical peripheral vascular disease in a population-based cohort of diabetic patients.

Clinical peripheral vascular disease (PVD) was studied in an incidence cohort of 1073 residents of Rochester, Minnesota, who were found to have diabetes mellitus in the period 1945-69. About 8% of patients already had clinical evidence of PVD at the time of diagnosis of diabetes. The proportion increased with the age at which diabetes was discovered.