THE PERIPHERAL RESISTANCE IN ARTERIES OF LEGS IS INVERSELY PROPORTIONAL TO THE SEVERITY OF CHRONIC VENOUS INSUFFICIENCY

There are conflicting reports in the literature about the existence of arteriovenous shunting in legs with chronic venous insufficiency. Usi ng duplex scanning, we have earlier shown that there is lowered periph eral resistance in the arteries of legs with venous ulcer together wit h premature venous filling in angiography. In the present study we inv estigated the peripheral resistance in the arteries of 16 legs with ch ronic venous insufficiency without present ulcer. We compared the resu lts with those obtained from 12 healthy legs and from 18 legs with ven ous ulcer. There was a highly significant inverse correlation between the severity of chronic venous insufficiency and the peripheral resist ance in the popliteal, the dorsal pedal and tbe posterior tibial arter ies (p<0.001). These results suggest that there is arteriovenous shunt ing in legs with chronic venous insufficiency and that this phenomenon correlates with the degree of chronic venous insufficiency.