[Clinical picture and background for progression of peripheral arteriosclerosis in Japanese patients with coronary artery disease].

Coexisted peripheral vascular disease (PVD: ankle/brachial pressure index A/PBI less than 0.75) or carotid artery disease (CTD: Brochenbrough's supraorbital Doppler flow analysis) were diagnosed by non-invasive testings, and correlated with clinical pictures and coronary backgrounds in 121 consecutive patients with confirmed coronary artery disease. PVD were found in 16.5%, CTD in 33.1% and both PVD and CTD in 9.9%. The mean age of PVD(+) patients was significantly higher than that of PVD(-) patients, furthermore CTD(+) patients displayed a significantly larger number of coronary risk factors than CTD(-) patients. Concerning the subjective symptoms, 20% of PVD(+) patients and 45% of CTD(+) patients were asymptomatic regarding PVD or CTD symptoms. However the degree of calcification of the aortic arch on the chest X-film (n = 104) significantly correlated with A/BPI. In patients with AMI, PVD patients showed significantly higher peak CK and CK-MB values than those in PVD(-) patients, which suggested large infarct size in coexistent PVD patients. With respect to the relationship between coronary risk factors, there was a statistically significant difference between PVD(+) patients and PVD(-) patients in terms of the obesity ratio in males as well as hypercholesterolemia ratio and obesity ratio in females. In CTD patients, significant differences between CTD(+) and CTD(-) patients were found with respect to the smoking ratio and obesity ratio in males as well as the smoking ratio in females. In whole study patients, A/BPI with lowered and A.I. (atherogenic index) increased significantly when patients possessed coronary risk factors equal or more than 4 items, which suggested the progression of PVD with increasing number of coronary risk factors.