[Quality of life and peripheral obliterative arteriopathy. Perspective for the future]

Atherosclerosis is the primary cause of peripheral arterial disease. Because atherosclerosis is a generalised disease, it is possible that patients with peripheral arterial disease may have other arterial disorders. Such patients have a reasonable chance of continuing to walk, although their general prognosis is less favourable because of high cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Nevertheless, the following approaches can be used to improve the management of patients with peripheral arterial disease: diagnosis of peripheral arterial disease in its early stages by systematic measurement of the ankle/brachial index; improvement in screening for lesions in other arteries by analysing the clinical symptomatology and performing simple complementary examinations; improvement in the management of atherosclerosis risk factors, particularly cigarette smoking, as well as in the treatment of diabetes, arterial hypertension and hypercholesterolaemia; enhancement of antithrombotic agents by the development of new, more effective antiplatelet drugs. Finally, quality of life should be considered an essential factor governing treatment choice. A self-administered questionnaire concerning intermittent claudication has been used to assess the quality of life of patients with peripheral arterial disease undergoing treatment with ifenprodil tartrate. This study showed that the evaluation of intermittent claudication should not be limited to walking distance alone, but that a more general criterion, better adapted to atherosclerotic disease, should be considered: measurement of quality of life.