Frequency of non-vascular accompanying diseases in patients with peripheral arterial disease.

Background: Since there are so far no relevant figures on the frequency of non-vascular associated diseases in patients with peripheral arterial disease (PAD), an analysis was carried out to determine how frequently co-morbidity is found in such patients.

Patients And Methods: In the course of a retrospective analysis, 1693 patients (55.4% men, 44.6% women/average 68.6years) with peripheral arterial diseases (PAD) of Fontaine stage II to IV were examined to find out how often cardiopulmonary, gastrointestinal, haematological, endocrinological, neurological, orthopaedic, urological-nephrological, psychiatric diseases and tumours were seen.

Result: Coronary ischaemic heart disease was present in 63.1% of the cases, heart failure existed in 20.7%, hypertension in 57.9%, endocrine and metabolic diseases in 60.4%, gastrointestinal diseases in 14.8%, pulmonary diseases in 14.5%, psychological and behavioural deficiencies in 16.2%, orthopaedic diseases in 21.6%, haematological diseases in 9.0%, urological diseases in 16.9%, chronic renal insufficiency in 7.3% and malignant tumours in 5.8%.

Conclusions: The frequency of non-vascular comorbidity in patients with PAD necessitates systematic interdisciplinary diagnosis prior to any therapy decision to take into account the patient's associated diseases, life expectancy and current quality of life.