Screening of Peripheral Artery Disease by Systematic Measurement of Ankle-Brachial Index among Diabetic Patients in Dakar

Introduction: The peripheral artery disease (PAD) is one of the chronic and frightening vascular complications of the diabetes whose tracking can be done by the Ankle-Brachial Index (ABI) measurement. We conducted in this context a study which consisted in measuring the ABI among hospitalized diabetic patients at Teaching Hospital of Pikine in Dakar, over 18 months’ duration. The aim was to determine the prevalence and evaluate factors correlated to the presence of the PAD. Patients and Method: This cross-sectional descriptive study interested the whole of diabetic patients hospitalized in Internal Medicine/Endocrinology Department, from January 2013 to June 2014. We carried out a complete clinical examination associated with ABI measurement by a Doppler probe for each included patient after having collected the clinical and paraclinical data. Results: Our population of study comprised 209 diabetic patients with a female predominance (126, 60.3%). The sex-ratio man/woman was 0.6. The median age of the population of study was 54 ± 2 years. In our series, 157 (75.1%) patients discovered their diabetes with the waning of an affection while the 52 (24.9%) other patients discovered their diabetes at the time of a systematic assessment. The PAD appeared by an intermittent claudication among 38 patients (18.2%). The ABI was normal for 126 patients (60.3%). The ABI was low for 51 patients (24.4%), unilateral in 3.8% of cases and bilateral in 20.6% of cases. The ABI was high among 32 patients (15.3%), unilateral in 7.2% of cases and bilateral in 8.1% of cases. The ABI extremes values were 0.11 and 2. In the population of study, 46 patients (22%) had a well-compensated PAD. The PAD was low compensated for 3 patients (1.4%) and severe for 2 patients (1%). The ABI was more frequent and significantly among women than men, with 32 cases (25.4%) against 19 (22.9%) cases (p = 0.021). The proportion of low ABI was more important among patients whose diabetes had evolved for more than 5 years (42.3% of cases) with a peak of frequency in the duration of 6 - 10 years (47.7% of cases). Conclusion: The PAD global prevalence among hospitalized diabetic patients appeared high with 24.4% patients presenting low ABI. Its early diagnosis among subjects at risk as for our study population allowed identifying asymptomatic subjects having another cardiovascular damage. Thus, the screening of obstructive arteriopathy of lower limb PAD by the measurement of ABI should be applied to all diabetic patients for a better assessment of atherosclerotic complication.