What is PAD?

Peripheral Arterial Disease (PAD) is a deadly, chronic condition affecting approximately 20 million Americans. Patients who have PAD have a 33% 5-year mortality rate, with common complications including stroke and heart attack, and diabetic foot ulcers progressing to infection, gangrene and amputation.

What is PADnet?

PADnet is a medical device that allows non-invasive physiologic testing to aid in the diagnosis of PAD. PADnet is clinically valuable, generating any combination of ABIs, TBIs, segmental blood pressures (SBIs), or segmental PVRs to detect mild to severe blood flow pathology. PADnet is easy to perform, able to be operated by a medical assistant, and objective enough to produce qualitative and quantitative data that can be remotely interpreted by a vascular specialist. PADnet is the most trusted technology in the marketplace.

PAD Risk Factors and Symptoms

Risk factors for PAD include hypertension, hyperlipidemia, tobacco use, diabetes, and age. 1 in 3 over the age of 50 with diabetes mellitus or a history of tobacco use have PAD, and regardless of these risk factors, 1 in 3 over the age of 70 suffer from this disease. PAD is closely associated with heart disease, with 75% of those with PAD also having heart disease. Patients with heart disease and PAD are 6 times more likely to die from heart disease than those who have heart disease but don’t have PAD. The classic symptom of PAD is claudication, characterized as a dull, cramping pain while walking. However, most patients don’t present with claudication or other typical symptoms, due to mischaracterization of the symptom (i.e. must just be old age), or the patient making lifestyle modifications (i.e. not walking) in order to not experience symptoms.

PAD Consequences

If left untreated, leg pain may progress to resting leg pain, slow- or non-healing lower extremity wounds, gangrene and amputation. Whether or not a patient with PAD has typical symptoms does not affect PAD mortality.

PAD and Healthcare Costs

PAD is a significant cost driver for the US healthcare system, costing $390 billion annually to treat and manage. The average annual cost of healthcare for a Medicare beneficiary is $12,000, but if they have PAD, the annual cost increases to more than $72,000. Amputation costs are a main driver, whereas approximately 100,000 lower extremity amputations are suffered by patients, due to PAD. Treatment options and early detection are key to improving patient outcomes and reducing the costs associated with treating and managing PAD.