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Determinants of exercise calf muscle perfusion in Peripheral Arterial Disease (PAD)
Journal of Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance volume 18, Article number: P356 (2016)
Background
In patients with PAD, ankle-brachial index (ABI) does not correlate well with time to claudication and lacks the ability to quantify tissue perfusion, therefore limiting the development of new therapies. Arterial spin labeling (ASL) MRI is a novel non-contrast technique that measures peak calf muscle perfusion noninvasively at a microvascular level. We sought to analyze the relationship of traditional risk factors for PAD and levels of exercise-induced calf muscle perfusion measured by ASL MRI.
Methods
Forty-two (42) patients with PAD (ABI < 0.9) were prospectively enrolled. All performed supine plantar flexion exercise using a pedal ergometer until exhaustion or limiting symptoms. Images of the most symptomatic leg were obtained at end exercise using a flexible calf coil in a 3-T Siemens Trio. Fifteen (15) averaged perfusion-weigthed ASL images were acquired over 1 minute post-exercise with single-shot echo-planar imaging readouts (field of view: 200 × 200 mm, matrix: 64 × 64, repetition time: 4,000 msec, echo time: 32 msec, slice thickness: 10 mm).
Results
The mean age was 66 ± 11 years, 64% were male, 67% Caucasians and mean ABI was 0.60 ± 0.12.
Fifty-two (52%) were diabetics, 86% had hypertension, 79 % had hyperlipidemia (HLD), 62% had CAD, 91% were smokers and 14% had a prior TIA/Stroke. The mean BMI was 29.1 ± 5.0, mean GFR was 70.5 ± 23.7 mL/min/1.73 m2. Mean log(ASL) values were higher (1.39 ± 0.26) in patients with HLD than in those without HLD (1.17 ± 0.20) (R2= 0.12 p = 0.02). Other risk factors (HTN, smoking, gender and diabetes) did not correlate with ASL. Age is a significant predictor of log(ASL) (p < 0.05). For every year increase in age there is a 1.7% increase in ASL. ABI, however, was not associated with either hyperlipidemia or age.
Conclusions
Tissue microvascular perfusion in PAD as measured by ASL has different determinants than the macrovascular disease measured by ABI. Older PAD patients with HLD may primarily suffer from the macrovascular aspects of the disease, rather than the microvascular.
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This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
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Gonzalez, J.A., Li, Y., Shaw, P.W. et al. Determinants of exercise calf muscle perfusion in Peripheral Arterial Disease (PAD). J Cardiovasc Magn Reson 18 (Suppl 1), P356 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1186/1532-429X-18-S1-P356
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/1532-429X-18-S1-P356
Keywords
- Peripheral Arterial Disease
- Arterial Spin Label
- Microvascular Perfusion
- Peripheral Arterial Disease Patient
- Flexion Exercise