Post-exercise ankle blood pressure and ankle to brachial index after heavy load bicycle exercise

International audience; The American Heart Association (AHA) recommendations for diagnosing peripheral artery disease (PAD) after exercise are a decrease >20% of ankle brachial index (ABI) or >30 mm Hg of ankle systolic blood pressure (ASBP) from resting values. We evaluated ABI and ASBP values during incremental maximal exercise in physically active and asymptomatic patients. Patients (n = 726) underwent incremental bicycle tests with pre- and post-exercise recording of all four limbs arterial pressures simultaneously. Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed to define the correlation between post-exercise ABI with various clinical factors, including age. Thereafter, the population was divided into groups of age: less than 40 (G