[The lower limb of elderly patients (venous and arterial diseases)]

J Radiol. 2003 Nov;84(11 Pt 2):1869-76; quiz 1877-9.
[Article in French]

Abstract

Elderly patients frequently suffer from vascular pathologies of the leg. In these more fragile patients, diagnostic work-up must cause as little trauma as possible. The clinical status and morphological appearance of the vessels make vascular investigations sometimes difficult to perform in the elderly. With arterial pathology, vascular imaging relies on numerous non invasive techniques (Duplex scan and vascular imaging techniques by reconstruction: helical CT and magnetic resonance angiography). The clinical exam, the evolution stage of arterial disease and these non invasive investigations must allow to select the patients that should benefit from an arteriography, more or less associated to revascularization. With thrombo-embolic pathology, venography has now been replaced by venous duplex scan of the lower limbs irrespective of the underlying thrombotic etiology.

Publication types

  • Case Reports
  • Comparative Study
  • Review

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Age Factors
  • Aged
  • Angiography*
  • Arterial Occlusive Diseases / diagnosis*
  • Arterial Occlusive Diseases / diagnostic imaging
  • Humans
  • Intermittent Claudication / diagnosis
  • Ischemia / diagnosis*
  • Ischemia / diagnostic imaging
  • Leg / blood supply*
  • Magnetic Resonance Angiography*
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • Phlebography*
  • Pulmonary Embolism / diagnosis
  • Pulmonary Embolism / diagnostic imaging
  • Thrombophlebitis / diagnosis*
  • Thrombophlebitis / diagnostic imaging
  • Tomography, Spiral Computed*
  • Ultrasonography, Doppler, Duplex*