Introduction:

Peripheral arterial disease is a frequent and devastating complication in people with diabetes. This condition can appear from prediabetes stages; however, it is not established when to carry out the screening of asymptomatic young adult patients with short time of evolution of the disease.

Objective:

To characterize asymptomatic peripheral arterial disease in patients with type 2 diabetes.

Methods:

An analytical cross-sectional study was carried out with 190 diabetic patients with type 2 diabetes aged 40-60 years and with less than ten years of evolution of the disease. The selection included, as of September 2017, the patients admitted to the Diabetic Care Center of the Institute of Endocrinology without prior diagnosis of peripheral arterial disease. The diagnosis was done based on the ankle/arm pressure index.

Results:

6.3% (n=12) had asymptomatic peripheral arterial disease. There were no significant differences between the variables studied and the occurrence of asymptomatic peripheral arterial disease, which was significantly related to the presence of ischemic heart disease. Arterial involvement was slight in all the patients identified and was associated with ischemic heart disease; this was not the case with other clinical variables under study. Neither did the combination of these variables increase the risk for the onset of the disease.

Conclusions:

Asymptomatic peripheral arterial disease is a rare complication in diabetic people under 60 years of age and with less than ten years of evolution of the disease.

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