What is Peripheral Vascular Disease?
Peripheral vascular disease refers to the general term for diseases that occur in the blood vessels of the limbs. According to the disease, the blood vessels can be divided into arterial diseases and venous diseases. It is mainly caused by related underlying diseases or bad living habits. The main clinical manifestations include limb swelling, limb pain, and intermittent claudication. At present, the gold standard for the diagnosis of most peripheral vascular diseases is angiography, which is mainly surgical treatment with mild symptoms. General treatment and medication can be used.
- Chinese name
- Peripheral vascular disease
- Cause
- Age, lifestyle, smoking, arterial disease
- Clinical manifestation
- Swelling, pain, intermittent claudication, etc.
- an examination
- Laboratory inspection, imaging inspection
- Diagnosis
- Combined with ultrasound, angiography, CT, etc.
Basic Information
Causes of peripheral vascular disease
- 1. With the increase of age, the incidence of vascular diseases such as venous thrombosis is increasing.
2. Living habits of standing or sitting for a long period of time are more likely to cause lower limb venous insufficiency. Patients who have been bedridden for a long time or have mobility disorders are prone to form deep vein thrombosis of the lower limbs.
3 Smoking can damage the arterial endothelium, promote local inflammatory response, and thus activate the intravascular coagulation mechanism, leading to vasospasm and thrombosis. In addition, smoking may cause abnormal blood lipids and accelerate the development of arteriosclerosis.
4 Arterial disease Arteriosclerosis can cause blood clots that can lead to occlusion of the blood vessels. In rare cases, arteriosclerosis can cause arterial wall damage to become weak and form aneurysms.
5. Other hypertension, diabetes, etc. can cause peripheral vascular disease.
Clinical manifestations of peripheral vascular disease
- 1. Symptoms (1) Swelling of the limbs: Swelling of the limbs with venous reflux disorders can occur in the limbs, mostly unilaterally, and the swelling can be alleviated after lying flat or raising the affected limb.
(2) Pain in the limbs: Venous reflux disorders can lead to heavy and swollen limbs due to blood stasis, which can be aggravated after activity, and improve after rest or limb elevation; arterial ischemic diseases can cause pain in the extremities of the limbs. The resting state can appear, which can be aggravated after the activity or extremity is elevated, and can be relieved after rest.
2. Signs (1) Intermittent claudication: Intermittent claudication is a typical manifestation. Patients with arterial ischemia may experience limb weakness and pain after activity, which may be relieved after stopping and resting, and similar symptoms may occur after a period of activity.
(2) Skin temperature and color: In patients with chronic limb arterial occlusive disease, the skin of the limb is cold, pale or blue, and the skin appears black and blue when gangrene occurs.
(3) Nodular erythema: Red indurations and plaques may appear on the skin of patients with thromboocclusive vasculitis, accompanied by burning and tenderness.
(4) Varicose veins: Patients with venous disease may have superficial veins exposed or varicose veins. If accompanied by thrombophlebitis, there will be tenderness and other manifestations.
Peripheral vascular disease examination
- 1. Laboratory tests may have abnormal blood coagulation, and patients with diabetes have elevated blood sugar.
2. Imaging examination (1) Ultrasound: It can be used as a preliminary diagnostic auxiliary examination for most peripheral vascular diseases, and has the advantages of simplicity, non-invasiveness and so on.
(2) Angiography: It is an invasive examination and is currently the gold standard for diagnosis of most peripheral vascular diseases.
(3) CT or magnetic resonance: non-invasive examination, generally used in combination with angiography, can provide more intuitive information.
Diagnosis of peripheral vascular disease
- According to the typical symptoms and signs, a diagnosis of vascular disease can be established initially, and the diagnosis of the disease can be determined by combining ultrasound, angiography, CT or magnetic resonance.
Peripheral vascular disease treatment
- 1. General treatment is mainly a change in living habits, including quitting smoking, avoiding sedentary or standing for a long time, low salt and low fat diet.
2. Patients with deep vein thrombosis need to take anticoagulant drugs regularly. Patients with swollen limbs can cooperate with drugs that promote venous return. Patients with arterial disease can take antiplatelet aggregation drugs and vasodilator drugs in addition to regular drugs for basic diseases. Relieves symptoms of ischemia.
3 Surgical treatment of most peripheral vascular diseases requires surgical treatment, which can be divided into open surgery and intraluminal surgery. Open surgery has greater trauma and surgical risk, slower postoperative recovery, less intratraumatic surgery and faster recovery, and is currently widely used.
4 Other treatments (1) Compression treatment: Patients with venous disease can wear elastic socks with pressure gradient.
(2) Functional exercise: Patients with arterial disease can perform appropriate functional exercise, mainly walking, and rest after each walk until the symptoms of ischemia appear, and then resume walking after the symptoms have improved.