Diabetes Standards of Care and Resources for Clinicians and Educators

Recommendations for Peripheral Arterial Disease

• Assist patients who smoke to quit. See the section on tobacco use.
• Obtain a history of claudication symptoms and assess pedal pulses as part of routine diabetes care.
• Obtain an Ankle-Brachial Index (ABI) in patients with diabetes:
  • Screen all patients with diabetes > 50 years of age.
  • In addition, consider a screening ABI in patients < 50 years of age who have ≥1 additional PAD risk factor, including smoking, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, or duration of diabetes >10 years.
  • Obtain a diagnostic ABI in any patient with suspected lower extremity (LE) PAD, including those with abnormal pulses, symptoms of claudication, or non-healing LE wounds.
  • ABI results are defined as follows: abnormal <0.9; normal range is 0.9-1.4.
• Refer patients with either significant symptoms or an abnormal ABI for vascular evaluation.
• Order one-time ultrasound screening for abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) in men aged 65 to 75 years who have ever smoked and in patients ≥ 65 years of age with a family history of AAA .

Featured Peripheral Arterial Disease (PAD) Resources

Peripheral Arterial Disease (PAD) Patient Education Resources