Oxygenation and flow in the limbs: Novel methods to characterize peripheral artery disease.

Peripheral arterial disease (PAD) affects approximately 8 million Americans and is associated with high morbidity and increased mortality. Current therapies for PAD are limited and development of new therapeutic agents is needed. Present diagnostic methods for PAD are insensitive to the subtle microvascular and metabolic changes that occur beyond macrovacular stenosis and therefore may be less useful endpoints for clinical trials. Phosphorus-31 magnetic resonance (MR) spectroscopy, MR muscle perfusion, and MR oximetry are novel methods capable of evaluating both the macrovascular and microvascular changes that occur in PAD patients.