Patients with peripheral vascular disease (PVD) are at increased risk of death when compared with age-matched healthy controls, and patients with PVD, whether symptomatic or not, are six times more likely to die within ten years when compared to patients without the disease. This excess mortality exists even if coronary artery disease is not clinically present, and makes the treatment of PVD a highly important and pressing topic. In comparison with patients who have coronary artery disease, clinicians have shown that risk factors in peripheral vascular disease are less likely to be treated, and because patients with PVD have a decreased exercising capacity, a cycle of sedentary lifestyle impacts upon quality of life and the progression of atherosclerosis. Furthermore, the improvement of symptoms without a pharmacological or non-pharmacological intervention is unlikely, making appropriate therapy for PVD critical.
In this fully up-to-date text, Dr Mukherjee and his excellent team of twenty-one contributors present the reader with all of the currently available clinical information for treating PVD patients effectively, discussing, for example, treatments such as: * risk factor modification and therapy to prevent cardiovascular events * pharmacological therapy for claudication * exercise training for the treatment of claudication * surgical or endovascular revascularization.