Prospects of Contrast‐Enhanced Ultrasonography for the Diagnosis of Peripheral Arterial Disease: A Meta‐analysis

Objectives Contrast‐enhanced ultrasonography (CEUS) is a modern diagnostic method that can also be used to study microperfusion. This study compared the time to peak intensity measured by CEUS in patients with peripheral arterial disease (PAD) and healthy control participants. Methods After a comprehensive literature search in multiple electronic databases and study selection, a random‐effect meta‐analysis was performed to compare the time to peak intensity measured by CEUS in patients with PAD and healthy controls, which followed meta‐regression analyses for identification of factors affecting the outcomes. Results Fourteen studies (data for 322 patients with PAD and 314 healthy individuals) were used for the meta‐analysis. The age of this sample of patients with PAD was 64.92 (95% confidence interval, 62.53, 67.31) years, and that of the healthy controls was 55.32 (51.67, 58.98) years. The times to peak intensity were 18.55 (15.62, 21.48) seconds in healthy controls, 33.40 (27.65, 39.15) seconds in patients with PAD, and 76.22 (36.23, 116.22) seconds in patients with PAD and diabetes mellitus. The difference between patients with PAD and healthy controls in the time to peak intensity was statistically significant (mean difference, 24.80 [10.16, 39.44] seconds; P