Ankle-brachial index as a predictor of all-cause and cardiovascular disease mortality in 3733 Chinese patients with high cardiovascular risk

Objective To assess the association between 1-year risk of all-cause and cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality and ankle-brachial index (ABI) in Chinese patients who were at high CVD risk. Methods Totally 3733 patients with high CV risk had bilateral ABI measurements at baseline and were followed up for 1-1.5 years. Patients were divided to four groups: 1) coronary heart disease (CHD); 2) ischemic stroke (IS); 3) diabetes mellitus (DM); 4) very high risk group(VHR), low ABI was defined as <0.9. Results A total of 3179 patients were analyzed. The prevalence of low ABI was 28.1%. At 1 year, all-cause mortality was 8.7%, and 27.6% was attributable to CVD; mortality due to CV events was 4.8% and 1.5%.After adjusting other risk factors the hazard ratio of low ABI was 1.623 for all-cause mortalityand 2.304 for CVD mortality. Similar in patient with and without low ABI, respectively were found in four groups.Conclusion ABI is a strong and independent predictor of mortality. Patients with a low ABI have a substantially increased risk of all-cause mortality and CVD mortality.