Arteriosclerosis is an insidious disease which can begin as early as childhood or adolescence and remain completely asymptomatic for many years. In men with PAD the clinical symptoms usually start from about the age of 45 and in women from the age of 55, but they can also go undiscovered right into old age. Studies show that asymptomatic PAD is three times more common that the symptomatic form. Almost 9 million people in the USA suffer from PAD. The prevalence of symptomatic PAD in those under 60 years of age is about 3%, and in those over 75 it is 20%. Men are affected more than twice as often as women, with a ratio of 2.5 : 1. The life expectancy of male PAD patients is reduced by 10 years.

There are positive correlations with male gender, age, diabetes mellitus, nicotine, hypertension and hypercholesterolemia. Smoking is the most important single risk factor. Smokers develop PAD 3 times more often than nonsmokers. Having a number of risk factors potentiates the incidence of PAD.

The occurrence of PAD together with cerebral and cardiac circulation disturbances is of conside-rable clinical importance. Patients with PAD suffer strokes twice as often as patients of the same age who do not have PAD. Every second claudication patient also has coronary circulation disturbances. The main cause of death in PAD patients is therefore also coronary heart disease, cerebral and other vascular causes of death.