Background: Current guidelines recommend that patients with peripheral arterial disease (PAD) cease smoking and be treated with aspirin, statin medications, and angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors. The combined effects of multiple guideline-recommended therapies in patients with symptomatic PAD have not been well characterized.
Methods and results: We analyzed a comprehensive database of all patients with claudication or critical limb ischemia (CLI) who underwent diagnostic or interventional lower-extremity angiography between June 1, 2006 and May 1, 2013 at a multidisciplinary vascular center. Baseline demographics, clinical data, and long-term outcomes were obtained. Inverse probability of treatment propensity weighting was used to determine the 3-year risk of major adverse cardiovascular or cerebrovascular events (MACE; myocardial infarction, stroke, or death) and major adverse limb events (MALE; major amputation, thrombolysis, or surgical bypass). Among 739 patients with PAD, 325 (44%) had claudication and 414 (56%) had CLI. Guideline-recommended therapies at baseline included use of aspirin in 651 (88%), statin medications in 496 (67%), ACE inhibitors in 445 (60%), and smoking abstention in 528 (71%) patients. A total of 237 (32%) patients met all four guideline-recommended therapies. After adjustment for baseline covariates, patients adhering to all four guideline-recommended therapies had decreased MACE (hazard ratio [HR], 0.64; 95% CI, 0.45 to 0.89; P=0.009), MALE (HR, 0.55; 95% CI, 0.37 to 0.83; P=0.005), and mortality (HR, 0.56; 95% CI, 0.38 to 0.82; P=0.003), compared to patients receiving less than four of the recommended therapies.
Conclusions: In patients with claudication or CLI, combination treatment with four guideline-recommended therapies is associated with significant reductions in MACE, MALE, and mortality.
Keywords: atherosclerosis; claudication; peripheral vascular disease; prevention; statins.