[Disorders of the arterial blood supply in the upper extremities]

Arteriopathies of the upper half of the body may lead to considerable functional disturbances of the arm and severe deficits on the part of the central nervous system. Due to good comparison they scarcely cause or do not cause any complaints in a no unconsiderable part. The clinical material consisting of 4,162 patients from five annual courses had in 9.2% occlusion and stenoses localized in the supraaortic and brachial region. The in most cases systemic angiopathy here explains the frequently combined appearance with arterial processes in the pelvic and the leg region. According to the height of the occlusion we clinically differ types of carotis, shoulder girdle, upper arm and peripheral-acral obliteration, which in each case show differences concerning frequency, age of manifestation, etiology, distribution of sex and clinical degree of severity. The angiological basic diagnostics is based on the inspection, palpation of the arteries, auscultation of the vessels, bilateral measuring of the blood pressure after Riva-Rocci and functional examinations, such as fist closure test and Allen test, as well as clinical proofs or exclusions of neurovascular syndromes of the shoulder girdle. The special apparative angiological methods comprise the oscillo-, rheo- and vein occlusion plethysmography, the Doppler ultrasound technique, estimations of the ophthalmic pressure, isotopic methods and angiographic exploration. --The individual angiological examination methods are of different importance according to the height localisation of the angioorganopathy. --The incomplete syndrome of the aortic arch is taken into consideration. In short the author adopts a definite attitude to the demands of therapy.