Prevalence and Causes of Normal Exercise Oximetry in the Calf in Patients with Peripheral Artery Disease and Limiting Calf Claudication

ObjectiveIn patients with claudication, an ankle brachial index (ABI) under 0.90 is considered to be abnormal and a sufficient argument for the arterial origin of exercise induced pain. Exercise transcutaneous oxygen pressure (Ex-tcpO2) can provide evidence of exercise induced regional blood flow impairment (RBFI) and confirm the arterial origin of walking induced pain. The frequency with which calf Ex-tcpO2 remains apparently normal in patients with claudication and abnormal ABI is unknown. Causes of these discrepant results have yet to be analysed.MethodsA retrospective analysis of 4575 Ex-tcpO2 tests performed on 3,281 patients was conducted. The focus was on patients with a history of calf claudication and ABI under 0.90. Duplicate or non-standard tests were excluded, as were patients with no pain or those able to walk more than 15 minutes (on a treadmill). Searches were conducted for possible explanations of normal calf Ex-tcpO2 in the selected patients.ResultsCardiorespiratory limitation was identified in 50 patients and isolated non-calf ischemia in 36 of the 106 patients selected. There was no obvious explanation during Ex-tcpO2, but clinical improvement after non-vascular treatment or total absence of improvement after a technically successful revascularisation was noted in 12 patients. Four patients were lost on follow up. Four patients improved after revascularisation, which suggests that the Ex-tcpO2 result was false negative.ConclusionsEx-tcpO2 is negative in more than 20% of tests performed in patients with an ABI under 0.90 and a history of calf claudication. In most cases, when excluding re-tests and non-limiting or non-calf claudication on the treadmill, non-calf ischemia or a non-vascular limitation occurring during the test were observed. This observation supports both the value of treadmill testing in patients with calf claudication assumed to be of arterial origin (ABI<0.90) and the use of Ex-tcpO2 to detect non-calf ischemia.

161