Comment on “Ankle-brachial Index and associated factors in individuals with coronary artery disease”

Dear Editor,

We were pleased to read the high-level study by the research team of Saulo Henrique Salgueiro de Aquino et al.¹. They found that the independent risk factors for peripheral arterial occlusive disease were age, history of diabetes, and history of systemic arterial hypertension. Although this study is significant for the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular disease, we still believe that there are also some issues to be explored further.

First of all, the author intended to investigate the relationship between ankle-pleural index and the major risk factors for coronary heart disease, however, the conclusions of this study failed to support the purpose of the study. In other words, the title of the article does not accurately reflect what is being studied.

Furthermore, when studying the relationship between different risk factors and ankle-pleural index, it is not clarified that why did the author use the rank sum test rather than the student’s t test. The possible reason may be that ankle-pleural index is a non-normal distribution. It would have been better that the author would have explained the possible reason. Age is a risk factor for both diabetes and hypertension, there is no definitive association between ankle-pleural index and diabetes or hypertension. If ankle-pleural index is associated with age, then ankle-pleural index is not a good predictor for diabetes and hypertension.

REFERENCES

• ¹ Aquino SHS, Melo IT, Souza CDF, Costa FA. Ankle-brachial Index and associated factors in individuals with coronary artery disease. Rev Assoc Med Bras (1992). 2020;66(4):407-13. https://doi.org/10.1590/1806-9282.66.4.407
  » https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1590/1806-9282.66.4.407

• Funding: none

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  15 Oct 2021
• Date of issue
  June 2021

History

• Received
  14 Feb 2021
• Accepted
  14 Mar 2021