Chronic Occlusive Arterial Disease of Lower Extremity In Japan

Abstract

Chronic occlusive disease of the peripheral arteries, although not so common as in the Western countries, is not rare in Japan. Until a decade ago, it was the general belief that there were two distinct types of occlusive arterial disease, namely, Buerger's disease and arteriosclerosis obliterans. As a result of recent careful morphologic and angiographic studies there has been a reevaluation of the entity known generally as Buerger's disease. Several American workers have suggested that Buerger's disease is not a definite clinical entity and now consider arteriosclerosis as the principal cause of chronic occlusive disease of peripheral arteries.* The purpose of this paper is to describe our experiences with these diseases in Japan and to discuss the entity known as Buerger's disease based on a long follow-up and on angiographic studies in two study groups. I Follow-up Study (Group A) During the years 1945 to 1959, a total of 124