Chronic peripheral arteriopathy is associated with seropositivity to Chlamydia pneumoniae

The study was carried out to clarify the correlation between Chlamydia pneumoniae infection and peripheral arterial disease (PAD). Thelevel of specific antibodies of the 133 consecutive patients suffering from PAD at 2nd stage of Leriche's classification were comparedwith 60 healthy controls by using a commercial Micro-IF Test. A higher incidence of serological evidence of C. pneumoniae infectionwas found in the patients (106/133) than in controls (6/60). These results are in agreement with other findings that measured theinfection in atheromasic plaques. A strong cause-effect relationship between bacterial infection and peripheral arterial disease was notfound, but the raised seropositivity level could be considered as a target for medical therapy of PAD.