IJCS | Volume 31, Nº4, July / August 2018

409 Figure 1 - Prevalence of peripheral artery disease (PAD) in the overall population and stratified by age group. Prevalence of PAD % (PAD) 18 - 30 years 31 - 40 years 41 - 50 years 51 - 60 years 61 - 70 years Total Above 70 years 7.0 6.0 5.0 4.0 3.0 2.0 1.0 0.0 Alvim et al. Prevalence of peripheral artery disease Int J Cardiovasc Sci. 2018;31(4)405-413 Original Article older than 40 years in the present study (1.7%), the data are lower but in agreement to those of other studies such as the ones performed in Sri Lanka by Weragoda et al. 32 in 2015 (3.6%, n = 2,912) and in the US by Razzouk et al. 22 in 2015 (the Life Line Screening ® , 4.1%, n = 3.67 million), and Eraso et al. 16 in 2015 (4.6%, n = 7,058), which identified prevalence rates below 5% in the general population. In a study published in 2016, Alzamora et al. 15 described a prevalence of new PDA of 4.3% (n = 2,256) in a study with a follow-up of 5 years conducted in a Spanish population aged more than 55 years and described as having low-risk factors for cardiovascular disease. In the present study, the prevalence of PAD above the age of 50 years was 2.6%. As expected, age was independently associated with a diagnosis of PAD, as identified by the present and previous studies. Therefore, the low prevalence of PAD in the present study is partially due to the low mean age of the participants, the inclusion of volunteers with age starting at 18 years, and the fact that most volunteers (62.1%) were below the age of 50 years. Additionally, our sample had only about 7% (n = 116) of the volunteers above the age of 70 years, a group in which a higher prevalence of PAD is expected. 15-17,19,20,32 Volunteers with PAD in the present study were older and had higher BMI, HbA1c, and SBP levels compared Table 2 - PAD prevalence by decade in men and women Age (n) PAD overall prevalence n cases (%) PAD prevalence men n cases (%) PAD prevalence women n cases (%) Below 30 (397) 1 (0.3) 1 (0.6) 0 (0) 31 - 40 (279) 0 (0) 0 (0) 0 (0) 41 - 50 (335) 0 (0) 0 (0) 0 (0) 51 - 60 (316) 3 (0.9) 1 (0.8) 2 (1.1) 61 - 70 (184) 7 (3.8) 2 (2.5) 5 (4.8) Above 70 (116) 6 (5.2) 3 (5.4) 3 (5.0) PAD: peripheral artery disease.