[Endovascular treatment of sclerotic arteriopathies of the lower limbs].

Percutaneous transluminal angioplasty is performed to treat arterial stenoses or occlusions. Currently, balloon angioplasty is still considered as the gold standard even if new interventional devices and techniques have been proposed to improve immediate and long-term results: stents, intraarterial thrombolysis, percutaneous aspiration embolectomy, atherectomy, laser and ultrasound angioplasty. Evaluations of these methods in the treatment of peripheral arterial diseases are ongoing. An interventional procedure is indicated only after a thorough analysis of the medical and anatomo-angiographic data. A stenosis or a short occlusion of the iliac or the femoro-popliteal arteries are typical indications for percutaneous angioplasty in case of claudication; more complex lesions become gradually accessible to percutaneous methods in patients with chronic critical and even acute arterial ischaemia of the lower limbs. During the follow-up, the development of a restenosis is detected by careful clinical examination and ultrasound duplex scanning.