The Accuracy of Arterial Waveform Analysis in Predicting Arterial Lesions Diagnosed by CT Angiography in Symptomatic Patients

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: CT angiography (CTA) is established as a standard method for the evaluation of patients with peripheral arterial disease. However, there are some drawbacks including overestimation of stenotic lesions as well as dye toxicity and allergic reactions and renal function impairment. Arterial waveform analysis (AWA) is widely accepted as a diagnostic as well as a screening tool in the vascular laboratory. The purpose of this study was to determine the diagnostic accuracy of the AWA compared to the CTA. METHOD: One hundred thirty-eight AWA procedures were performed among symptomatic patients in our laboratory between October 2004 and February 2007. Sixty patients were entered into the study; they were eligible to have AWA and CTA synchronously. There were 5 women and 55 men with an average age of 64 years. The disease entities were atherosclerosis in 53, Burger's disease in three, popliteal entrapment in 2, arterial embolism in 1 and vascular trauma in one. Continuous-wave Doppler velocity waveforms were recorded at the common femoral, popliteal and dorsal pedal and posterior tibial arterial levels with compression cuffs. Four hundred and eighty segmental interpretations were analyzed and compared with the CTA findings. RESULT: The sensitivity of the AWA to detect iliac, femoropopliteal and tibial lesions were 93.8%, 64.4% and 88.4% respectively. The specificity of the AWA for the iliac, femoropopliteal and tibial lesions were 87.3%, 93.4% and 95.6% respectively. Overall, the accuracy of the AWA was 88.9% compared to the CT findings. Additional exercise AWA improved the results from 82.8 % to 88.6% for the overall sensitivity of the AWA. The 20 false positives included technical problems in 14 and reference errors (CTA) in six that were due to calcifications. There were 33 false negatives mostly from cases with stenosis and good collaterals. CONCLUSION: The results of this study showed that the AWA was a valuable method for the prediction of hemodynamically significant arterial lesions. The addition of highly skilled operators and a protocol including a high thigh cuff application might improve the accuracy of this diagnostic method.