Pentoxifylline and Intermittent Claudication

Excerpt

The Food and Drug Administration has recently approved the use of pentoxifylline, a methylxanthine with vasoactive properties (1), for the symptomatic treatment of intermittent claudication due to chronic occlusive peripheral arterial disease. Pentoxifylline may offer an alternative to arterial surgery or transluminal angioplasty for selected patients with intermittent claudication as well as provide a useful adjunct to the conservative management of patients with symptomatic occlusive arterial disease for whom restoration of pulsatile flow is not indicated or feasible.

Clinicians and investigators abroad (where pentoxifylline has been in use since 1972) have been studying for more than 10 years the hemorheology,