The occlusion of the main arteries - conducts to acute or chronic disturbances of blood supply of anatomic area or an organ. Acute disturbances of blood supply are caused by an embolism or a clottage of a vessel. In 95 % the reason of an embolism is the pathology of heart: defects of mitral or aortal valves, a ciliary arrhythmia, a condition after a myocardial infarction with formation of thrombuses about walls, an aneurysm of heart, a septic endocarditis. In 5 % a source of an embolism is formation of a plenty of thrombuses in arterial aneurysms (especially often in aneurysms of a thoracal and abdominal aorta), after operative measures on vascular system, at traumas, a clottage of venous vessels at an oval aperture which was not closed, with rising pressure in the right auricle (a paradoxical embolism).

The clinical picture is characterized by a sudden pain in an extremity (75-80 %). The pain can be absent when from the very beginning full anesthesia quickly develops, the pain can be minimal in case of conservation of a collateral circulation. Paleness of integuments in an initial stage is replaced by a cyanosis with a mottled drawing and sharp depression of dermal temperature.

Obliterating atherosclerosis - one of principal causes of disturbances of a peripheric blood flow. Its development is promoted by a diabetes mellitis, a lipidemia, a hypertensia, rising of mass of a body, a nicotinic intoxication, elderly and senile age. To risk factors carry a polycythemia, chronic infections, psychosocial stressful situations. The lesion usually universally also concerns narrowings a lumen of arteries not only extremities, but also a brain, heart, kidneys.