Are Arterial and Venous Disease Mutually Exclusive?

Abstract

In our private medical practice, which consists of virtually 100% patients with superficial and/or deep venous insufficiency, we have observed incidences of hypertension, angina and intermittent claudication which are so strikingly low that we felt obliged to attempt to validate this observation statistically. We have been able to show that the blood pressures of our patients are lower than those of controls, and that the differences are highly significant. With respect to the low incidences of angina and intermittent claudication in our patients, statistical proof of an inverse relationship with venous disease cannot come from our private practice alone. Proof could be quickly obtained by a statistical study employing existing data in government or health insurance databases, whose cooperation we have thus far not succeeded in obtaining. The main purpose of this article is to stimulate further interest in these relationships, which, if confirmed, have obvious health implications.