Diabetes mellitus and localizations of obliterating arterial disease of the lower limbs.

Thirty patients with intermittent claudication (IC) and treated diabetes mellitus and 30 age- and gender-matched nondiabetic claudicants underwent a vascular examination by noninvasive ultrasound methods (continuous-wave Doppler, duplex scanner). The ankle/arm systolic pressure index did not differ in the two groups. Diabetic patients with IC had more (p less than .001) non-flow-reducing stenoses (lumen reduction less than 50%) and fewer (p less than .002) flow-reducing obstructions (lumen reduction greater than 50%) of the iliac arteries than nondiabetics had. These data are consistent with a preferentially distal (below the inguinal ligament) localization of arterial stenoses in diabetic patients, whereas iliac artery diseases are relatively more severe in nondiabetics.