Edinburgh questionnaire in the screening for peripheral artery disease in type 2 diabetic patients.

AIM: to analyze Edinburgh questionnaire (EQ) screening performance for peripheral artery disease (PAD) in type 2 diabetic patients. METHODS: Cross sectional study including 150 type 2 diabetic patients without PAD history. All patients responded to EQ and had peripheral pulse checkup and measurement of the ankle/brachial index (ABI). PAD was considered to be present when the ABI was ≤ 0.9 Results: Participants mean age was 57.46 ± 8.04 years and sex-ratio (men/women) was 1.3. EQ has revealed intermittent claudication in 18 patients (12%). On examination, 42 patients (28%) had at least one weakened or abolished pulse in upper limbs. ABI has revealed the presence of PAD in 16% of patients. The EQ sensibility specificity, positive and negative predictivevalueswere 29, 91,39 and 87%, respectively. Among patients with false negative results (n=17), nine had peripheral neuropathy. CONCLUSION: In diabetic patients, EQ had a very low sensibility for the PAD screening. In fact, the important false negative rate, due to the coexisting of peripheral neuropathy, had limited the use of this questionnaire.