Abstract
To investigate the early stage of peripheral circulatory disturbances, we measured systolic blood pressure (SBP) at arm and peak forward blood flow velocity (PFV) from radial artery (RA) and dorsalis pedis artery (DA) in senile patients (22 hypertension, 4 hyperlipidemia, 3 cerebral apoplexy and 7 others; 70-99 Years, n=36) and healthy volunteers (21-56 years, n=18) with ultrasonic Doppler velocity meter. Subgroup consisted of some senile patients' limbs whose PFV from an artery was 20% less or more less than the PFV from the contralateral artery. 58.3% of senile patients had those limbs of the subgroup. PFV (cm·sec-1) from RA and DA of the subgroup (RA, 19.0±5.1; DA, 19.0±5.1) were lower than those in normal control group (RA, 23.0±4.2; DA, 25.8±7.9) (p<0.05). Conductance index (CoI =PFV/SBP, cm·sec-1·mmHg-1) from RA and DA of the subgroup (RA, 0.13±0.04; DA, 0.11±0.07) were lower than those in normal control group (RA, 0.19±0.03; DA, 0.21±0.07) (p<0.001). CoI from RA and DA of all senile patients (RA, 0.17±0.06; DA, 0.17±0.08) were also lower than those in normal control group (p<0.05). These results suggest that: (1) PFV and CoI are useful indices to evaluate disturbances of peripheral circulation, (2) Col is a more sensitive index to detect disturbances of peripheral circulation than PFV alone, (3) a relatively large number of senile patients had disturbances of peripheral circulation in upper limbs as well as in lower limbs.
