How to treat hypertension in patients with peripheral artery disease.

The risk of peripheral artery disease is underestimated by many physicians; such risk is further augmented by the presence of hypertension. Detection of these conditions is essential to prevent cardiovascular accidents. This review deals with the management of peripheral artery disease as a risk factor, highlighting the need for triple therapy (antiplatelet drugs, angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors, and statins). Treatment of hypertension is approached by reviewing the essentials of the different antihypertensive drugs available, focusing on their peripheral circulatory effect. However, because individual antihypertensive drugs seem not to differ largely in this respect, attention is drawn to the message that the most important task in these patients is to control total cardiovascular risk rather than focusing on the choice of the individual antihypertensive drug.