Need more reason to stop smoking? One shall look no further than the cause and cure for the Buerger's disease. Buerger's disease is a recurring inflammation and clotting of the small and medium arteries and veins of the hands and feet, thus causing pain in the affected areas. This disease is often caused by the use of tobacco products by all types of smokers as well as the use of smokeless tobacco. The most common complications involve ulcerations and gangrene in the extremities, which will result in amputation. As the diagnostic criteria differ among authors and publishers, how do we identify the common ones?

First of all, patients diagnosed with Buerger's disease are typically between the ages of 20 to 40 years and is more common among men than women. The disease is also found to be more common among lower class societies in the South East Asians communities as well as countries such as India, Israel and Japan as compared to United States and Europe. The second criteria are that most often, the patients have a recent history of tobacco use. Besides that, there is a presence of distal extremity ischemia as documented by ultrasound tests. One can also undergo laboratory tests that are used to exclude other autoimmune diseases, diabetes mellitus and hypercoagulable states. Other criteria include exclusion of a proximal source of emboli by arteriography as well as consistent arteriographic findings in the limbs.

As the symptoms are often similar to a wide variety of other diseases such as atherosclerosis or endocarditic, an aggressive evaluation or diagnosis has to be done. For Buerger's disease, there is no effective treatment. However, a decrease in smoking activities has shown to slow down the progression of the disease and decrease the severity of amputation in most patients. In addition, vascular surgery and streptokinase have, at some point, been promising in treating this disease.

While Buerger's disease can cause a life-shortening process but not immediate death, the next best recommendation is for both male and female patients to abstain from all tobacco products in order to maintain a higher longevity rates.