Figure 3.

Procedure of Exercise-TcPO₂ in one patient. Case history: a 59-year-old woman, former smoker with a history of hypertension and hyperlipidemia always reports pain in her right buttock when she walks although she had surgery for lumbar spinal stenosis 2 years before. The discomfort has progressively worsened over the past 4 months and now forces her to rest after walking 250 m at a normal pace. The pain is interfering with her ability to perform her job. She has a normal right femoral pulse and normal ankle-brachial index. (A): patient on a treadmill with five probes of TcPO₂ (one on each buttock, one on each calf, and one on the chest) and a 12-lead electrocardiogram. Upper right (B): schema of a TcPO₂ probe. Lower right (C): typical recordings of Exercise-TcPO₂ measurements showing a right buttock ischemia with a DROP (delta from rest of oxygen pressure) lower than −15 mm Hg.