clinical features

Last reviewed 10/2022

The clinical course of the disease is often protracted and extremely painful but usually remits if the patient stops smoking.

Major features may include:

  • peripheral ischaemia:
    • especially of the upper extremities
    • ischaemic areas are sharply demarcated from adjacent, well-perfused tissue
  • faint / absent pulses in small and medium sized arteries- commonly, radials, tibials and plantars; rarely, brachials or femorals
  • foot claudication
  • superficial thrombophlebitis
  • cold sensitivity
  • Raynaud's phenomenon
  • peripheral neuropathy
  • gangrene of the toes and fingers