Identifying potentially avoidable femoral to popliteal expanded polytetrafluoroethylene bypass for claudication using cross-site blinded peer review.

Objective: The surgical treatment of claudication can be associated with significant morbidity and costs. There are growing concerns that some patients proceed to interventions without first attempting evidence-based nonoperative management. We used a direct, cross-site, blinded expert review to evaluate the appropriateness of the surgical treatment of claudication.