Objective: The present study was undertaken to evaluate, by means of angiography, the anatomic pattern of arterial obstructions in the lower extremities of diabetic patients presenting with critical limb ischaemia. We particularly examined the differences in involvement of the foot arteries between patients with and without diabetes.
Patients and methods: A group of 150 patients with limb-threatening ischaemia, manifested by rest pain and/or non-healing ischaemic ulcers or gangrene, underwent angiologic evaluation in prevision of vascular surgery. The patients, of whom 89 were suffering from diabetes, were examined by means of digital subtraction angiography using the Seldinger technique. In each patient, details of arterial tree were obtained from the aortoiliac to the foot arteries and the site and the extent of obstructions were determined blindly with the radiologist unaware of the patient's history of diabetes.
Results: Diabetic patients showed significantly more obstructions in the infrapopliteal arteries when compared to the patients without diabetes who had more pronounced involvement of aortoiliac and femoropopliteal arteries. Diabetic patients, moreover, showed a higher prevalence of obstruction in posterior tibial, peroneal and plantar arteries than the non-diabetics. At the time of presentation, the age of patients did not differ between the two groups but diabetic patients had more frequent ischaemic ulcers or gangrene and less rest pain than the non-diabetics.
Conclusions: Our study confirms earlier reports carried out with non-angiographic methods indicating more frequent involvement of calf arteries in diabetic patients but disagrees with those which report that patients with diabetes have less occlusive disease in foot arteries.