Low ankle brachial index predicts poor outcomes including target lesion revascularization during the long-term follow up after drug-eluting stent implantation for coronary artery disease

Abstract Background Peripheral arterial disease (PAD) frequently coexists with coronary artery disease (CAD). The ankle-brachial index (ABI) is widely used for the screening for PAD. Low ABI is associated with short-term clinical outcomes in patients receiving coronary drug-eluting stent (DES) implantation. However, there is no report to examine the relationship between lower ABI and long-term clinical outcomes after DES implantation. Thus, we investigated the clinical long-term impact of low ABI after DES implantation. Methods This retrospective analysis included 181 CAD patients treated with DES from April 2010 to March 2013 in our institute. Based on ABI values, we divided the subjects into the low-ABI group　(ABI  Results During the median follow-up period of 43 months, the incidences of TLR, all-cause mortality, and MACCE were significantly higher in the low ABI group than in the normal ABI group (TLR: 41.4% vs 9.9%, p  Conclusions Low ABI may predict poor long-term outcomes, including TLR, in CAD patients treated with DES.