[The SITAR Project. A new approach to diagnosis and surgical indication in arteriopathic patients].
The extreme variations with which atherosclerotic disease presents as regards progression index, arterial bed localization frequency, malignity and invasiveness in different ages and often as regards different anatomopathological aspects characterizing the formation and course of the primary lesion, mean that there are still many unknowns in the aetiopathogenesis, diagnosis and operative indications for this disease. Such problems are more and more important to the vascular surgeon who, with the development of atherosclerotic disease, sees the long-term results of his arterial reconstructive surgery compromised. The vascular surgeon is therefore directly involved with his colleagues in the internal medicine and pharmacological departments in problems connected with the pathogenesis of arteriosclerosis, and indeed he contributes to setting new constraints on the choice of prosthetic materials, for use in cases of bridge-work, and in the creation of new surfaces by means of thrombendarteriectomy. On the basis of such considerations, the IInd Surgical Clinic of Milan University began, in 1975, a study whose end purpose was the drafting of a clinical card designed for data computerization. Compiled by the surgeon, it is intended essentially for vascular surgeons. However, as it is personally considered that by the very nature of the disease, the atherosclerosis approach must be interdisciplinary, it also concerns physicians in the internal medicine, pharmacological and dietological departments.