Peripheral artery disease in women

Abstract

Peripheral artery disease (PAD) is a common disease among women and is expected to increase in the comingyears. Diagnostic and therapeutic management of PAD in women is difficult due to their gender-relateddifferences, comorbid factors, atypical symptoms, more functional disorders, the presence of advanced disease,being older age of the disease onset, smaller vessel diameter, and psychosocial factors. Especially due to thehigh prevalence of asymptomatic disease, late admission status and further disease on admission affect thesuccess of the treatment negatively. By focusing more on PAD in women and more clinical studies, genderspecific differences can be identified. Hereby, there is a need to develop appropriate strategies to improvewomen's overall quality of life. In this review, we aimed to draw attention to the female gender with PAD,which is increasingly occurring.