[Limits and potentials of modern functional diagnosis of chronic arterial insufficiency of the extremities (CAIE)].

A survey is made of the angiologic methods for ChAIE investigations. The role and the potentialities of some of the non-invasive present-day methods are discussed in details, implemented lately in the clinical practice: determination of muscular Xenon 133 clearance, venous obturation pletismography (VOP) and US Doppler flowmetry. VOP is one of the few methods, enabling the quantitative assessment of the functional state of peripheral circulation. US Doppler flowmetry, as a relatively easy to apply and adequate method for wide clinical application and for scientific investigations, gives a valuable diagnostic information about CHAIE and enables the accurate dynamic control of the vascular-reconcstructive and conservative therapy. An original classification system is proposed for the assessment of the potentialities of the various angiologic methods in ChAIE diagnosties.