Current aspects of performing treadmill test in patients with peripheral artery disease

Abstract

The protocols of performing treadmill tests (TMT) in patients presenting with peripheral artery disease have over the last decades undergone significant changes, with the alterations concerning not only the speed and time values of the load, but also the parameters measured. Currently, there is no unified generally accepted method of TMT, hence the need for an optimal protocol for carrying out this type of examination, which would help obtain reliable results in assessment of everyday life functional activity of patients and efficacy of various methods of treatment for peripheral atherosclerosis. The choice of an optimal methodology of performing a TMT in patients with intermittent claudication is extremely important because studying the haemodynamic parameters alone not always clearly reflect functional peculiarities of the course of the disease, since they depend not only on the presence of arterial stenoses or occlusions, but also on the activity of oxidative enzymes, endothelial and mitochondrial dysfunction, taking therapeutic agents, concomitant pathology and a series of other factors. The article is a review of the related literature contained in such databases as the Medline, PubMed, Russian Science Citation Index (RSCI) and Scopus and concerning TMT in patients with peripheral artery disease. The authors summarized the information from a total of 63 literature sources over the period from the 1970s to 2018.