Treating Principles and Methods of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Treatment of Peripheral Vascular Diseases

Peripheral vascular disease embraces a variety of conditions such as thromboangiitis obliterans, Raynaud's disease, thrombophlebitis, aorto-arteritis, obliterate atherosclerosis, varix or phlebothrombosis of the lower limb. Although the affected blood vessel may be arterial or venous one and caused either by inflammation or degenerate changes, they share common symptoms and signs, such as blood stasis, ischemia, thrombosis, ecchymosis, swelling, constriction or obliteration of blood vessels due to circulatory impairment. Since they share common characteristics, the treating principles and methods will be discussed as follows.