UTILITY OF ANKLE BRACHIAL PRESSURE INDEX AS A SCREENING TEST TO DETECT PERIPHERAL ARTERIAL DISEASE IN DIABETES MELLITUS

Introduction: Chronic hyperglycemia in diabetic patients cause many microvascular and macrovascular changes in the body. PAD is considered to be an important macrovascular complication of diabetes mellitus, especially among those with prolonged duration of diabetes. As PAD can be asymptomatic initially, it can lead to important morbidities including amputation of limbs if not detected early. ABPI is a cheap, easy and useful tool to assess PAD even in asymptomatic diabetic patients. Methods: This is a randomized cross-sectional study of 120 diabetic patients, asymptomatic for peripheral arterial disease, attending Medicine OPD or admitted in our tertiary care hospital of South Gujarat. Pretested proforma was used to collect data after taking informed consent. Investigations including ABPI with sphygmomanometer and colour doppler as mentioned in the proforma was carried out. Final analysis has been done with the help of Open EPI and SPSS software. Results: 30.83 % of patients of our study population were found with abnormal ABPI. Our data shows PAD is directly associated with high HbA1c, duration of DM, and BMI. No correlation was found between age and gender. Out of 37 significant ABPI patients, 28 patients were found to have PAD by colour doppler also. Conclusion: Among diabetic patients, high HbA1c, prolong duration of DM and high BMI were associated with abnormal ABPI, which was suggestive of PAD