Association between calf girth and peripheral artery disease in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study

• Published in: Journal of cardiology Vol. 76; no. 3; pp. 273 - 279
• Main Authors: Liang, Jianwen, Zhang, Huanji, Sun, Xiuting, Liao, Lizhen, Li, Xiaoling, Hu, Xun, Du, Jianhang, Zhuang, Xiaodong, Liao, Xinxue
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Netherlands Elsevier Ltd 01.09.2020
• Subjects: Aged; Anthropometry - methods; Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities; Body Size; Calf girth; Cohort Studies; Female; Heart Disease Risk Factors; Humans; Incidence; Leg - physiopathology; Male; Middle Aged; Peripheral Arterial Disease - diagnosis; Peripheral Arterial Disease - epidemiology; Peripheral Arterial Disease - etiology; Peripheral artery disease; Prevalence; Proportional Hazards Models; Regression Analysis; Risk Assessment - methods; Risk Factors; Sex Factors; Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities; Peripheral artery disease; Calf girth
• ISSN: 0914-5087; 1876-4738
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jjcc.2020.04.002

•There is a linear relation of gender specific calf girth with the prevalence of peripheral artery disease (PAD).•Correlation of calf girth and PAD prevalence indicates there is gender interaction effect.•There is a significant interactive effect of race and calf girth on incident PAD in men. The pathogenesis of peripheral artery disease (PAD) is associated with impaired calf muscle. We sought to investigate the association between gender-specific calf girth and the prevalence of PAD among participants from a community-based cohort study. A total 13,808 participants in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study without prior PAD were included in the final analysis. Calf girth was measured at baseline (1985–1987). A hospital diagnosis with an ICD-9 code defined incident PAD during follow up. Cox regression analysis adjusted for demographic variables and other covariates was used to estimate hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) for the association between calf girth and PAD. After a medium follow-up of 25.2 years, the overall prevalence of PAD in our study was 5.2% (721/13,808), 335 patients were women and 386 were men. The adjusted HR for PAD with calf girth as continuous variables was 0.99 (95% CI 0.95–1.04) in females and 0.93 (95% CI 0.88–0.99) in males, respectively. Moreover, interaction for gender was statistically significant between calf girth and PAD in overall population (p=0.001). Our findings revealed a linear association of calf girth with the prevalence of PAD among male participants in ARIC.