Smoking, hypertension, hypercholesterolemia and type 2 diabetes were associated with a high risk of developing clinically significant peripheral artery disease among men, according to recent study results.
Researchers followed 44,985 men in the US without a history of cardiovascular disease at baseline in 1986 until Jan. 2011. During follow-up, the presence of risk factors was updated biennially.
Main outcome measures included clinically significant peripheral artery disease (PAD) defined as limb amputation or revascularization, angiogram reporting vascular obstruction of 50% or greater, ankle-brachial index of less than 0.90 or physician-diagnosed PAD.
Researchers found 537 cases of incident PAD over a median follow-up of 24.2 years. After adjustment for the other three risk factors and confounders, each risk factor was significantly and independently associated with a higher risk of PAD. According to study results, at least one of the four risk factors were present at the time of PAD diagnosis in 96% of participants with PAD, and the population-attributable risk associated with these four risk factors was 75%.
Among age-adjusted incidence rates, researchers noted 19 incident cases for 0 risk factors; 99 incident cases for one risk factor; 176 incident cases cases for two risk factors; 180 incident cases for three risk factors and 63 incident cases for four risk factors. Study results showed the absolute incidence of PAD among men with all four risk factors was 3.5 per 1,000 person-years.
Disclosure: The researchers have no relevant financial disclosures.
For more information:
Joosten MM. JAMA. 2012;308:1660-1667.
