Peripheral arterial disease: A literature review

Abstract

IntroductionPeripheral arterial disease (PAD) is a common vascular condition that affects both quality of life and life expectancy with an increased risk of cardiovascular events.Sources of dataA literature search was carried out of Pub-Med, MEDLINE, the Cochrane Library and Google Scholar from the establishment of these databases up to February 2012. The search was performed by using the keywords 'peripheral arterial disease' and one of the following words: 'management', 'investigations', 'risk factors', 'epidemiology', 'revascularization', 'cryoplasty', 'atherectomy' and 'gene therapy'. Studies were limited to those published in English language.Areas of agreementAggressive risk factors modification is needed to reduce cardiovascular-related mortality in PAD patients.Areas of controversyChoice of endovascular or surgical intervention remains controversial in an ever-evolving field.Growing pointsThere is a rapid expansion of endovascular technologies aiming to improve the effectiveness of this modality.Areas timely for developing researchThe advances in the fields of gene therapy and therapeutic angiogenesis mean these are potential future treatments. Tissue engineering is a developing area and aims to produce grafts with similar patency and infection profiles to those of autologous material. Further elucidation of the pathophysiology of atherosclerosis is required to provide new targets for pharmacotherapy. © 2012 The Author.