Peripheral Artery Disease (PAD) is a serious disease caused by progressive atherosclerosis (calcification or hardening of the arteries), resulting in narrowing (stenosis) or blockage (occlusion) in the arteries that carry blood to the lower extremities (legs), resulting in some complications and even death. It is a 'vascular' disease. This disease, whose frequency is increasing in relation to the increase in human life expectancy, is thought to affect more than thirty million people today. Male gender, older age (especially 65 years and above), smoking or tobacco use, hyperlipidemia (high blood fat level), hypertension, diabetes mellitus (diabetes mellitus) and metabolic syndrome (SYNDROME X) are risk factors for PAD. Compared to Western European countries, total cholesterol (the mathematical sum of LDL, HDL and VLDL values, which are blood fats) levels are low in our country, but the prevalence of cigarette/tobacco use has increased the frequency of overweight (obesity) problems, diabetes and high blood pressure, which have increased in recent years. This increase poses significant problems. PAH may be asymptomatic (absence of signs and symptoms) or may present with atypical (signs) symptoms. Typical symptoms of PAH; Pain in the legs after walking, leg pain felt during rest in the future, numbness in the legs, weakness in the calf muscles, coldness in the legs and feet, feeling cold, color change in the feet, thickening of the toenails. Pain in the legs after walking is called 'Claudication'. Claudication is calf pain that usually occurs in the form of cramps during exercise. It passes with rest, occurs over a certain distance (for example, 500 meters‐100 m or 50 m), and walking distance gradually decreases as the disease progresses. Leg pain may be due to non-vascular causes.
It should be noted that patients with defined risk factors for PAH are at risk during the pandemic period and Covid-19 may trigger vascular occlusion and cause serious problems in these patients.
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