Background:

Violence in the country in recent decades has generated an increase in vascular injuries, producing an impact on the morbidity and mortality of the population and costs in health services.

Objectives:

to determine the usefulness of the ankle-brachial index in patients with lower extremity trauma and soft signs.

Methods:

a prospective, analytical and descriptive study was carried out from July 2018-July 2020 at Hospital Civil Fray Antonio Alcalde, which met inclusion criteria. The data obtained from the medical history and physical examination. Performing statistical analysis with measures of central tendency and dispersion, frequencies and percentages, with statistical significance p < 0.05.

Results:

72 patients with 76 injured limbs, 65 with initial ABI > 0.9, 7 < 0.9; The last ones underwent surgery, the 65 subjects > 0.9 were followed up at 6 hours with a new ABI, 61 presented > 0.9 ruling out injury and 4 < 0.9 which were intervened, the presence of ABI < 0.9 was associated with the involvement of the femoropopliteal sector (p < 0.001).

Conclusions:

the ankle-brachial index is useful as a screening for vascular lesions in the femoropopliteal sector, in the absence of an office study in the hospital unit.

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