Extracorporeal shock wave therapy improves the walking ability of patients with peripheral artery disease and intermittent claudication.

Background: Despite the recent advances in bypass surgery and catheter interventional therapy for peripheral artery disease (PAD), the long-term outcome of revascularization therapy for infrapopliteal lesions remains unsatisfactory. We have previously demonstrated that low-energy extracorporeal shock wave (SW) therapy effectively induces neovascularization through upregulation of angiogenic factors and improves myocardial ischemia in pigs and humans and in hindlimb ischemia in rabbits. In this study, we thus examined whether our SW therapy also improves the walking ability of patients with PAD and intermittent claudication.

Inflammatory popliteal aneurysm.

A 67-year-old man was referred to our department because of fever, right lower thigh swelling, and redness with pain. Laboratory tests showed slightly elevated leukocytes and markedly elevated C-reactive protein levels. Computed tomography confirmed a popliteal aneurysm with wall thickening, so-called mantle sign.

Nitroglycerin-mediated vasodilatation of the brachial artery may predict long-term cardiovascular events irrespective of the presence of atherosclerotic disease.

Aim: Nitroglycerin-mediated vasodilatation (NMD) provides insight into the NTG-induced bioactivity of smooth muscle. It is plausible that in dysfunctional smooth muscle cells, the response to nitroglycerin may become blunted. The relationship between impaired brachial artery NMD and subsequent cardiovascular events is not well established.