RESUMO
The article deals with the findings of examination and treatment of patients presenting with lesions of the distal-bed arteries and critical lower-limb ischaemia who were subjected to lumbar sympathectomy (LSE). The methods aimed at predicting efficacy of LSE in seventy-five patiens included Doppler ultrasonography with the nitroglycerine test and with the epidural blockade. Of these forty-five patients were subjected to laser Doppler flowmetry (LDF) and measurement of the transcutaneous oxygen tension in tissues before and after the epidural blockade. Presented herein are remote results of LPE obtained at terms up to 36 months for sixty-nine patients (92%) and analyzed depending on the parameters of the functional tests. Our findings suggest that the most statistically significant methods of study for predicting the outcome of lumbar sympathectomy turned out to be LDF and Doppler ultrasonography performed before and after the epidural blockade.