Greater improvements in waking distances, quality of life with revascularization plus exercise
TUESDAY, Nov. 10, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Combination therapy of endovascular revascularization and supervised exercise is associated with greater improvements than supervised exercise alone for patients with intermittent claudication. The findings were published in the Nov. 10 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, a cardiovascular disease theme issue published to coincide with the annual meeting of the American Heart Association, held from Nov. 7 to 11 in Orlando, Fla.
Farzin Fakhry, M.D., from the Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam, Netherlands, and colleagues examined the effectiveness of endovascular revascularization plus supervised exercise for intermittent claudication compared with supervised exercise only. Patients were randomized to a combination of endovascular revascularization (selective stenting) plus supervised exercise (106 patients) or supervised exercise only (106 patients) and followed for 12 months.
The researchers found that, compared with supervised exercise only, endovascular revascularization plus supervised exercise correlated with greater improvement in maximum walking distance (mean difference between groups, 282 m) and pain-free walking distance (mean difference, 408 m). The combination therapy group also experienced significantly greater improvement in the disease-specific vascular quality of life score (mean difference, 0.62) and the Short-Form 36 physical functioning score (mean difference, 9.8).
“Among patients with intermittent claudication after one year of follow-up, a combination therapy of endovascular revascularization followed by supervised exercise resulted in significantly greater improvement in walking distances and health-related quality-of-life scores compared with supervised exercise only,” the authors write.
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