Better Detection of Peripheral Arterial Disease with Toe-Brachial Index Compared to Ankle-Brachial Index among Taiwanese Patients with Diabetic Kidney Disease.

Background: Ankle-brachial index (ABI) is a simple method for diagnosing peripheral artery disease (PAD) but has limited reliability in patients with diabetes mellitus (DM) because of medial artery calcification. Our study aims to investigate whether the toe brachial index (TBI) or the cardio-ankle vascular index (CAVI) has a better detection over the ABI for diagnosing PAD in diabetic kidney disease (DKD).

Materials And Methods: A cohort of 368 patients (mean age 68.59 ± 13.14 years, 190 males and 178 females) with type 2 DM underwent ABI, TBI, and CAVI measurements at our outpatient clinic.

Results: Of all enrolled patients, the TBI is significant in evaluating PAD, especially in patients whose chronic kidney disease (CKD) stage 3a with adjusted odds ratio (AOR) = 6.50, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.63-25.97, = 0.0080, stage 3b AOR = 7.47, 95% CI 1.52-36.81, = 0.0135, and stage 4-5 AOR = 20.13, 95% CI 1.34-94.24, = 0.0116. CAVI is also significant in CKD stage 1 with AOR = 0.16, 95% CI 0.03-0.77, = 0.0223, stage 2 with AOR = 0.18, 95% CI 0.04-0.74, = 0.0180, and stage 3a AOR = 0.31, 95% CI 0.10-0.93, = 0.0375.

Conclusion: TBI has a better yield of detection of PAD compared to ABI among Taiwanese patients with DKD. CAVI may play a role in the early stage of DKD.