Vaskulárna medicína 1/2014

High ankle pressures and cardiovascular morbidity

Acute cardiovascular events (sudden death, myocardial infarction, stroke) are often the first manifestation of ongoing but still silent atherosclerosis. They often occur in patients without known pre-existing cardiovascular disease. It is necessary to early identify patients with subclinical atherosclerosis to prevent acute cardiovascular events in clinical practice. The stratification of cardiovascular risk according to the established tables may under estimate the global cardiovascular risk so the others methods are needed. One of them is the measurement of ankle-brachial index that is recognized marker of subclinical atherosclerosis. The association between low anklebrachial index and the poor cardiovascular prognosis is known for many years. The aim of the article is to focus to the fact that also high ankle-brachial index is the predictor of poor cardiovascular morbidity and mortality based on the recently published studies.

Keywords: ankle-brachial index, vascular calcification, cardiovascular morbidity, cardiovascular mortality.