European journal of vascular and endovascular surgery : the official journal of the European Society for Vascular Surgery
-
Eur J Vasc Endovasc Surg · Aug 2003
ReviewThe effect of peripheral percutaneous transluminal angioplasty on quality of life in patients with intermittent claudication.
intermittent claudication is associated with a significant reduction in quality of life. Treatment of claudicants aims to reduce mortality from cardio- and cerebro-vascular events and to improve quality of life. Quality of life assessment should be used to guide and evaluate treatment in this group of patients. Peripheral percutaneous transluminal angioplasty (PTA) is now widely used in the treatment of intermittent claudication. The aim of this review is to examine the effect of PTA on quality of life (QOL) in patients with intermittent claudication. ⋯ despite the fact that studies on the effect of PTA on QOL in claudicants have used generic QOL questionnaires which are relatively insensitive, the findings suggest that PTA may result in some improvement in QOL in these patients, although level I evidence to support this is lacking. The availability of disease-specific questionnaires should enable a more accurate assessment of PTA on QOL in these patients.
-
Eur J Vasc Endovasc Surg · Feb 2003
Improvement of carotid blood flow after carotid endarterectomy--evaluation using intraoperative ultrasound flow measurement.
to examine the relationship between the degree of extracranial internal carotid artery (ICA) stenosis and changes in the ipsilateral ICA blood flow after carotid endarterectomy (CEA). ⋯ in the absence of severe contralateral ICA occlusive disease a significant increase of ipsilateral ICA blood flow by CEA can be expected in patients with an ICA stenosis of > or =82.3% (linear degree of stenosis, ECST criteria).