Quantitative evaluation of the skin circulation in ischemic legs by transcutaneous measurement of oxygen tension.

We tried to apply transcutaneous oxygen tension (tcPo2) in evaluating the ischemic leg quantitatively from the standpoint of the skin circulation. The tcPo2 measurement was performed on the pretibial and dorsal skin at rest, on exercise loading, and during oxygen inhalation; tcPo2 on the chest wall was measured as a standard value. The subjects consisted of 47 patients with ischemic legs and 20 normal healthy males without ischemic legs. tcPo2 in the pretibial skin had a tendency to decrease with aging. There was a correlation between pretibial tcPo2 and ankle pressure (r = 0.51, p less than 0.02). In the affected leg, each mean pretibial tcPo2 under 3 different conditions was much lower than that of control. Pretibial tcPo2 of patients also correlated well with the Fontaine classification of clinical severity of ischemic legs. We concluded that transcutaneous measurements of oxygen tension at the pretibial region are useful in evaluating the ischemic leg quantitatively.