Introduction:
The diagnosis of peripheral arterial disease is determined by measurement of ankle-brachial index (ABI) - simple, highly sensitive, specific, fulfilling the WHO criteria for screening method. Slovak Angiological Society and Slovak Society of General Practice studied if ABI measurement would be beneficial in screening and could be performed by general practitioners.

Methods:
Slovak Angiological Society and Slovak Society of General Practice acted responsibly when considering the introduction of screening. First of all we started by analysing epidemiological studies. This led to a decision to conduct a pilot study: 24 general practitioners from all regions of Slovakia under supervision of angiologists assessed 2207 consecutive patients over 60 years old..

Results:
67.4% of patients had a normal ABI (0.9-1.2), 9.4% of patients had decreased ABI (<0.9) and 23.2% of patients had increased ABI (> 1.2). Patients with decreased ABI have significantly increased risk of myocardial infarction and stroke. Decreased ABI is more often in men, smokers, diabetics, suffering from high blood pressure, dyslipidaemia. This is our target group, patients in whom adherence to preventive measures and lifestyle changes introduced by general practitioner can lead to improvement of health and prognosis.

Conclusions:
In 2016, the possibility of ABI measurement was included in the preventive check-up In the same year. 3,886 amputations were performed in Slovakia. It is a challenge to evaluate the benefit of this measure over time. General practitioners determine the dominant way and rate of health care. Differential diagnosis of lower limb pain is their daily agenda in which ABI measurement can be effective. ABI test is a similar and cheap tool for the non-invasive assessment of PAD, expands the basic diagnostics and helps to clarify the cardio-vascular risk and risk of amputation.