Buerger’s Disease : Diagnosis

There are four key factors physicians use to diagnose TAO:

Rest pain or ulceration before 45 years of age
Current or recent tobacco use
Tests indicating the arteries are blocked. Typical tests include artery blood flow measurements (such as the ABI, or other vascular laboratory tests, such as ultrasound), arteriography (pictures of the affected blood vessel obtained by injecting a dye via a catheter), and/or biopsy of the affected artery.
No other causes for artery blockage or clot development. A physician would want to be sure that a clot did not develop in the heart or a large blood vessel and travel to the arm or leg (an embolus). The doctor would also want to be certain there had been no blood vessel injury or trauma, no local lesions such as a blood vessel cyst, no autoimmune diseases such as scleroderma, and no blood clotting diseases.

Buerger’s Disease section was last modified: August 04, 2010 - 11:13 am