The cardiovascular risk burden of peripheral arterial disease (PAD)

PAD is the third most important localisation of atherosclerotic disease, after CHD and CVD. PAD is often a multifocal atherosclerotic disease, with simultaneous involvement of carotid and coronary beds. For this reason the survival of PAD patient's is reduced because of an high frequency of fatal and non fatal cardiovascular events. Being the global cardiovascular risk of patients with PAD very high, the international, american and european guidelines recommend to treat actively risk factors present in these patients. Results from recent trials demonstrates that antiplatelet drugs, statins and ACE-I can be useful to reduce the risk of cardiovascular events of these patients.