Albuminuria as a risk factor for peripheral arterial disease in a general population: the Hisayama study

To elucidate the relationship between albuminuria and the prevalence of peripheral arterial disease (PAD), and to examine the effect of albuminuria on the ability to assess the likelihood of PAD in a general Japanese population.

In 3,061 community-dwelling subjects aged. 40 years, we investigated the association of urinary albumin-creatinine ratio (UACR) levels with the prevalence of PAD, defined as an ankle-brachial index < 0.9. The odds ratio for the presence of PAD was estimated using the logistic regression model. To compare the accuracy of the assessment for the likelihood of prevalent PAD between models adjusted for potential risk factors with and without UACR levels, the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were plotted.

Overall, 1.47% of the study participants had PAD. The age- and sex-adjusted prevalence of PAD increased linearly for UACR levels of < 5.6, 5.6-10.8, 10.9-29.9, 30.0-300.0, and >300.0 mg/g, being 0.34, 0.80, 2.02, 2.50, and 2.53%, respectively (p for trend <0.001). The multivariate-adjusted odds ratio for the presence of PAD was 1.85 (95% confidence interval 1.12-3.06) for every 10-fold increment in UACR. The area under the ROC curve significantly increased when UACR levels were incorporated into a model with potential risk factors for PAD (0.80 vs. 0.77, p= 0.02).

Greater UACR levels are associated linearly with a higher prevalence of PAD, even within the normoalbuminuric range, in the general Japanese population, and combining UACR levels with potential risk factors substantially improves the performance to assess the likelihood of PAD.