Noninvasive approaches to peripheral vascular disease - What's new in evaluation and treatment?

Intermittent claudication, weakness, and poor wound healing in a leg sugges t the presence of arterial insufficiency, but these and other clinical find ings often do not indicate disease severity, Fortunately, as the authors de scribe, several effective tools are available for noninvasive assessment of blood flow, characterization of atherosclerotic plaques, and evaluation of intraluminal structures. Also discussed are valuable nonsurgical treatment methods (ie, modification of risk factors, drug therapy to lower cholester ol levels and improve symptoms, and gene-based methods to promote therapeut ic angiogenesis).