The Effect of Angioplasty in Peripheral Arterial Disease on Endothelial Function

Peripheral arterial disease (PAD) is a common manifestation of atherosclerosis affecting a large proportion of the aged population. It is associated with a more or less severe impairment in functional activity and with an increased risk of future cardiovascular events. In PAD patients, an increased inflammatory status and a depressed endothelial function, assessed as flow-mediated dilation of the brachial artery have been demonstrated. Moreover, a prognostic value has been found in PAD patients for both inflammatory parameter and flow-mediated dilation (FMD). One of the reasons of the increased inflammatory activation and endothelial dysfunction in PAD patients could be the ischemia-reperfusion injury associated with intermittent claudication. The hypothesis is that repeated episodes of acute inflammation and endothelial dysfunction following ischemia-reperfusion injury linked to intermittent claudication could be in part responsible for the increased inflammatory status and chronically depressed endothelial dysfunction of these patients. Taking into account these considerations, it is reasonable to assume that the correction of leg ischemia by interventional procedure, such as peripheral transluminal angioplasty (PTA) should determine a reduction in inflammatory mediators and an improvement in endothelial function.

The study is a prospective, open, randomised, controlled, single-centre, follow-up evaluation, assessing the efficacy of peripheral catheter interventions in patients with symptomatic PAD on endothelial dysfunction and plasmatic procoagulant activity. Patients will be randomly assigned to immediate revascularization or to no treatment for one month. The assessment of parameters (brachial artery flow-mediated and nitrate-mediated dilation, plasma levels of C reactive protein, fibrinogen, microparticles and coagulation factors) will be performed at baseline and after 4 weeks in both, patients undergoing interventional procedures and in those, who will not be treated.