Long-Term Results of Transluminal Angioplasty of the Femoral Arteries

Percutaneous transluminal angioplasty (PTA) as a means of treating occlusive vascular disease of the lower extremities has become widespread. Within the last 3 years, reports of experience in centers across the United States and Europe have been published in both radiological and surgical literature [1–7]. Many of these reports have only dealt with short-term studies and small numbers of patients. Others fail to examine the variables that a vascular surgeon normally uses to evaluate surgical procedures. In this paper, we report the results of femoral artery PTA from the viewpoint of a vascular surgeon by examining those factors that are known to affect the outcome of surgical treatment of lower extremity occlusive arterial disease in order to provide a better way of comparing the results of angioplasty to those of surgery.