Chronic occlusive disease of the peripheral arteries, although not so common as in the Western countries, is not rare in Japan. Until a decade ago, it was the general belief that there were two distinct types of occlusive arterial disease, namely, Buerger's disease and arteriosclerosis obliterans. As a result of recent careful morphologic and angiographic studies there has been a reevaluation of the entity known generally as Buerger's disease. Several American workers have suggested that Buerger's disease is not a definite clinical entity and now consider arteriosclerosis as the principal cause of chronic occlusive disease of peripheral arteries.*
The purpose of this paper is to describe our experiences with these diseases in Japan and to discuss the entity known as Buerger's disease based on a long follow-up and on angiographic studies in two study groups.
I Follow-up Study (Group A)
During the years 1945 to 1959, a total of 124