[Prevalence of renal artery stenosis in patients with critical limb ischemia].

Background And Objective: Our purpose was to evaluate the prevalence of renal artery stenosis in patients with critical limb ischemia and to study any clinical or laboratory indicator that could predict this association.

Patients And Method: One hundred consecutive patients with critical limb ischemia evaluated by angiogram were included in the study from January to July 2003. Cardiovascular risk factors and renal function were analyzed.

Results: One hundred angiographic studies have been analyzed. Thirty nine (39%) of our patients had some type of pathology of the renal artery but the rest, 61 (61%), had normal and healthy renal arteries. In 5 patients, a bilateral renal pathology was found. Severe disease (> 60% stenosis, bilateral or renal occlusion) was present in 15 cases including 6 occlusions. Once we compared the patients with healthy renal arteries with the patients with different degrees of stenosis, we did not appreciate significant differences in hypertension, diabetes, coronary disease or smoking habit, nor with laboratory data such as creatinine, urea, c-reactive protein, total cholesterol or atherogenic index. No differences were found either comparing patients with normal renal artery with patients with bilateral pathology or with unilateral occlusion.

Conclusions: There is a high prevalence of renal artery pathology in patients with critical limb ischemia although we have not found any clinical or laboratory factors useful to identify them.