[The relevance of the ankle-arm index to the reclassification of cardiovascular risk in asymptomatic hypertensive middle-aged males].

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE

The ankle-brachial index allows for the detection of subclinical cardiovascular disease and risk, by diagnosing peripheral arterial disease and arterial calcification. Asymptomatic hypertensive men, between 45-55 years and with the suspicion of low risk, could be an important population group to benefit from this technique. The aim of the study was to compare the frequency of abnormal ankle-brachial index (subclinical peripheral arterial disease and arterial calcification) between asymptomatic hypertensive and non-hypertensive men, of the same age and suspicion of low risk.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

Two hundred and forty-four asymptomatic men (122 hypertensive and 122 non-hypertensive), between 45 and 55 years and an REGICOR index<10, were voluntarily recruited using consecutive sampling. Complete anamnesis, physical examination, laboratory tests and ankle-brachial index determination were carried out on all patients.

RESULTS

We detected abnormal ankle-brachial index values in 9.8% (12 cases) of the hypertensive subjects and in 1.6% (2 cases) of non-hypertensive subjects (P=.006). In the multivariate analysis, hypertension was significantly associated with an abnormal ankle-brachial index (P<.026) (odds ratio [OR] 5.9, 95% confidence interval [95% CI] 1.2-28.3), smoking (P=.018) (OR 2.7; 95% CI 1.2-6.2) and abdominal obesity (P=.005) (OR 2.8; 95% CI 1.3-5.9).

CONCLUSIONS

The population group analyzed in this study might be considered as an overriding segment for detecting subclinical cardiovascular disease and risk with the ankle-brachial index. Further studies are needed to establish the prevalence of abnormal ankle-brachial index in this population in order to assess its efficiency.