2016 AHA/ACC guideline on the management of patients with lower extremity peripheral artery disease: a report of the American College of Cardiology/American …

MD Gerhard-Herman, HL Gornik, C Barrett… - Journal of the American …, 2017 - jacc.org
MD Gerhard-Herman, HL Gornik, C Barrett, NR Barshes, MA Corriere, DE Drachman…
Journal of the American College of Cardiology, 2017jacc.org
The recommendations listed in this guideline are, whenever possible, evidence based. An
initial extensive evidence review, which included literature derived from research involving
human subjects, published in English, and indexed in MEDLINE (through PubMed),
EMBASE, the Cochrane Library, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and other
selected databases relevant to this guideline, was conducted from January through
September 2015. Key search words included but were not limited to the following: acute limb …
The recommendations listed in this guideline are, whenever possible, evidence based. An initial extensive evidence review, which included literature derived from research involving human subjects, published in English, and indexed in MEDLINE (through PubMed), EMBASE, the Cochrane Library, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and other selected databases relevant to this guideline, was conducted from January through September 2015. Key search words included but were not limited to the following: acute limb ischemia, angioplasty, ankle-brachial index, anticoagulation, antiplatelet therapy, atypical leg symptoms, blood pressure lowering/hypertension, bypass graft/bypass grafting/surgical bypass, cilostazol, claudication/intermittent claudication, critical limb ischemia/severe limb ischemia, diabetes, diagnostic testing, endovascular therapy, exercise rehabilitation/exercise therapy/exercise training/supervised exercise, lower extremity/foot wound/ulcer, peripheral artery disease/peripheral arterial disease/peripheral vascular disease/lower extremity arterial disease, smoking/smoking cessation, statin, stenting, and vascular surgery. Additional relevant studies published through September 2016, during the guideline writing process, were also considered by the writing committee, and added to the evidence tables when appropriate. The final evidence tables included in the Online Data Supplement summarize the evidence utilized by the writing committee to formulate recommendations. Additionally, the writing committee reviewed documents related to lower extremity peripheral artery disease (PAD) previously published by the ACC and AHA (9, 10). References selected and published in this document are representative and not all-inclusive. As stated in the Preamble, the ACC/AHA guideline methodology provides for commissioning an independent ERC to address systematic review questions (PICOTS format) to inform recommendations developed by the writing committee. All other guideline recommendations (not based on the systematic review questions) were also subjected to an extensive evidence review process. For this guideline, the writing committee in conjunction with the Task Force and ERC Chair identified the following systematic review questions: 1) Is antiplatelet therapy beneficial for prevention of cardiovascular events in the patient with symptomatic or asymptomatic lower extremity PAD? 2) What is the effect of revascularization, compared with optimal medical therapy and exercise training, on functional outcome and quality of life (QoL) among patients with claudication? Each question has been the subject of recently published, systematic
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