A simple oscillometric measurement of pulse wave velocity: Comparison with conventional tonometric measurement

Kim, Young Kwon; Lee, Myoung Yong; Rhee, Moo Yong

Abstract

BACKGROUND: We compared brachial-ankle pulse wave velocity (baPWV) measured by a simple oscillometric method with heart-carotid (hc) and heart-femoral (hf) PWVs measured by a conventional tonometic method.
METHODS
Using an automatic waveform analyzer, we measured hcPWV, hfPWV and baPWV simultaneously. The subjects comprised 82 healthy subjects (normal group), 229 subjects without coronary artery disease (CAD) but with hypertension, diabetes, hypercholesterolemia, low HDL-cholesterol, smoking, or obesity (risk group), and 106 patients with coronary artery disease (CAD group). In 30 subjects, reproducibility of PWVs were determined.
RESULTS
Pearson's correlation coefficients of intraobserver reproducibility of hcPWV, hfPWV and baPWV were r=0.855, r=0.912 and r=0.976, respectively (p<0.001 for all). The corresponding coefficients of variation (CV) were 4.5%, 4.5% and 2.6%. Pearson's correlation coefficients of interobserver reproducibility of hcPWV, hfPWV and baPWV were r=0.751, r=0.802 and r=0.972, respectively (p<0.001 for all). The corresponding CV were 7.8%, 5.8% and 3.3%. baPWV correlated well with hcPWV and hfPWV (r=0.457 and 0.640, respectively, p<0.001 for both). In normal and risk groups, age, sex and hypertension were major independent factors affecting hcPWV, hfPWV and baPWV. PWVs were increased according to the number of risk factors (p<0.001 for all). In CAD group, hfPWV was higher in patients with 3 vessel disease than those with 1+2 vessel disease (p=0.024). hcPWV, hfPWV and baPWV did not differ between risk and CAD groups in the age of 50 to 69 (p=NS for all).
CONCLUSION
baPWV has good reproducibility and correlates acceptably with hcPWV and hfPWV. This simple measurement of baPWV is useful for screening of arterial stiffness.