Prevalence of peripheral arterial disease diagnosed by ankle brachial index among chronic kidney disease patients in a tertiary care unit

The objective of this study is to determine the prevalence of peripheral vascular disease (PVD) in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD). Seventy-two patients with CKD stage 3 or above were included in this study. Blood samples were taken from each patient to determine complete blood counts, serum albumin, electrolytes, lipid profile and blood sugar random/fasting. The glomerular filtration rate (GFR) was estimated with the Cockcroft-Gault formula. The ankle-brachial index (ABI) was determined to identify the presence of PVD. A standardized Doppler ultrasound device was used. ABI of <0.90 was considered diagnostic of PVD. The mean age of the patients was 53.22 ± 12.8 years. Forty-six patients (63.9%) were male. Twenty-five patients (34.7%) were in stage 3 CKD, 20 patients (27.8%) were in stage 4 CKD and 27 patients (37.5%) were in stage 5 CKD. Twenty patients (27.8%) had an ABI <0.9 and hence had PVD. Of these patients, 13 (18.1%) had mild to moderate PVD with ABI of 0.41-0.90 and seven (9.7%) had severe PVD with ABI of 0.00-0.40. All the baseline parameters including systolic blood pressure (BP), diastolic BP, height, weight, body mass index, GFR, hemoglobin, total blood count, platelets, triglycerides, high-density lipoprotein, low-density lipoprotein and uric acid were not significantly different between patients with and without PVD (P >0.05). However, the mean total cholesterol was significantly higher among patients with PVD. The prevalence of PVD was significantly high in patients with stage 5 CKD (P <0.05). PVD is frequent among patients with CKD based on the ABI as measured by Doppler ultrasound.