Thromboangiitis Obliterans

In the course of the past ten years, during which the development of angiography has placed at the disposal of the clinician a highly reliable objective method of examination, many cases of peripheral arterial occlusive disease formerly classified as thromboangiitis obliterans (TAO) or Buerger's disease (BD) were, on reappraisal by the newer diagnostic tool, found to be manifestations of arteriosclerosis in patients of the younger age groups. Under more critical scrutiny of this type, the number of the cases of TAO seen in many clinics declined—often drastically. It is not surprising that in the minds of some clinicians doubt arose regarding the very existence of this entity.1,2 For our part, in a rather large group of patients with peripheral occlusive arterial disease (numbering over 1,400) extensively studied during the past 12 years by angiographic means from the point of view of operability, we have continued to see the complex