Prognostic significance of distal blood pressure measurements in patients with severe ischaemia

The clinical course was followed and the ankle and toe blood pressures were measured with the strain gauge technique on 5 occasions during 2 years in 43 patients with pain at rest and/or ischaemic ulceration due to severe ischaemia of the legs on the basis of occlusive arterial disease. Although arteriosclerosis of the legs in non-diabetic patients is generally considered a benign disease from the standpoint of limb survival, the critical level of TPI (systolic toe blood pressure/systolic arm blood pressure) was found to be 0.07 as a TPI below this value was associated with an overall 82% risk of amputation. With TPI above 0.07, the chance of successful conservative therapy was about 40%. Diabetics with severe ischaemia must be regarded as a high risk group in respect of amputation (64%) and lethality (64%). A variance analysis was made on the pressure data: In patients with low pressure peripheral vascular beds, the TPI must change more than 0.15 units from one examination to another before the alteration can be considered significant at the 99% confidence level.