Artery Research

Background In primary care, much effort goes into risk factor management. Early recognition of vascular dysfunction in patients should inform intervention to reduce vascular risk. Very few studies have looked at the application of augmentation index (AI) measurement in primary care, particularly in...

Purpose: It is well known that regular moderate aerobic exercise has a beneficial effect on cardiovascular risk, although the impact of long-term intense aerobic training has not been defined. Aortic stiffness and wave reflections are independent predictors of cardiovascular risk. In this study we assessed...

Recent follow-up studies showed no change or even short-term improvement of arterial stiffness after kidney transplantation. Data from general population and end-stage renal disease patients suggest, that PWV increases with age of 0,07–0,08m/s for each year of life. It was shown recently that reduced...

Introduction: Hypertension and renal dysfunction are associated with increased arterial stiffness. Arterial stiffness is a marker of cardiovascular disease and predictor of cardiovascular risk. We assessed the relationship between renal function and arterial stiffness in never-treated hypertensives. Methods:...

Background: The clinical importance of central blood pressure (BP) and heart rate corrected augmentation index (AIxHR75) has been gradually increasing in recent years. Objectives: We measured the peripheral and central BP, the AIxHR75 of healthy volunteers with special regard to diurnal variation (8...

Background: Fibrillin-1 is an important constituent of the vascular wall and earlier studies have indicated an effect of the fibrillin-1 2–3 genotype on blood pressure as well as aortic stiffness. The aim was to determine if the Fibrillin-1 2–3 genotype is associated with increased cardiovascular morbidity/mortality...

Background: Supine hypertension, a consequence of autonomic neuropathy, is a rarely recognized pathological condition. Reported diseases in the background are pure autonomic failure, multiple system atrophy, Parkinson’s disease, diabetes and different autoimmune disorders. Methods: In our case report...

Purpose: Leptin plays a regulatory role in body weight by controlling appetite and energy consumption. Elevated plasma leptin levels (hyperleptinemia) have been suggested to contribute to pathogenesis of diabetes, hypertension, atherosclerosis and coronary heart disease. Arterial stiffness is an independent...

Purpose: Adipocytokines secreted by adipose tissue play an important role in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis. Arterial stiffness represents an important novel risk factor of cardiovascular disease. We investigated the association between elevated serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT) levels, adipocytokines,...

Last year we presented that PWVao is a significant marker of early atherosclerosis. Now we were interested about how could the comparison of the central and brachial blood pressure predict the early atherosclerosis. The aim of this study was to analyze the relation between the central and brachial blood...

Objective: Arterial stiffness is one of the main determinants of the workload of the left ventricle. Amino-terminal pro B-type natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) is released by cardiomyocytes in response to left ventricular wall stress. The aim of this study was to investigate whether arterial stiffness...

Ankle brachial index (ABI) has increasingly been used in general practice to identify patients with low ABI at high cardiovascular risk. However there is no consensus on the clinical significance of high ABI. The aim of our study was to compare large artery stiffness as a marker of cardiovascular risk...

Increased arterial stiffness abnormal ventricular-vascular coupling have increasingly been recognized as playing an important pathophysiologic role in HF, both systolic and with normal ejection fraction. Aim: to assess and compare arterial stiffness, central blood pressure parameters in systolic heart...

Purpose: The NADPH oxidase system produces superoxide in the vessel wall and its -640A/G polymorphism is associated with coronary artery disease incidence in young individuals. We investigated the role of this polymorphism on peripheral/aortic pressures (PP, AoP), and endothelin-1 (ET-1) levels, in young...

Objective: To investigate predictors of increase in aortic pulse wave velocity (aPWV) in elderly subjects free from overt cardiovascular disease. Design and Method: The present study included 90 lecture attendees (“university of 3rd age”) who were examined at baseline and after a median follow-up of...

Introduction: Metabolic syndrome (MetS) is a cluster of metabolic abnormalities strongly associated with atherosclerosis and increased risk of CV events. Atherosclerotic plaques (AP) and its echolucency (ECL) can be detected using ultrasound (US) and evaluated by grey scale median analysis (GSM). ECL...

Introduction: The elevated level of C reactive protein (CRP) is associated with increased arterial stiffness in general population. However, it is uncertain whether CRP is related to arterial stiffness in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). Methods: We studied 63 RA women...

Background: Insulin resistance is a feature of essential hypertension. The interrelationships of indices of insulin resistance and arterial function in euglycaemic, never-treated hypertensives has not been addressed. To this end, we investigated the correlations of two insulin resistance indices (HOMA:...

Introduction: Arterial tree alteration is the cornerstone of diabetes complications and its mechanical parameters are impaired. Objective: Which are aortic pulse wave velocity determinants in a diabetic population? Methods: We studied 132 diabetic patients. They entered the day hospital to have a cardiovascular...

Background: The methodology of the gold standard for measuring aortic stiffness, carotid–femoral pulse wave velocity (cfPWV), has been revised in respect to the choice of distance measure. In order to clarify whether increased aortic stiffness is present in obese children and adolescents we investigated...

Elevated aortic pulse wave velocity (aoPWV) is an independent predictor of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. There are, however, no widely accepted normal or reference values for aoPWV. The aim of this work was to define these values. Patients and methods: AoPWV was assessed in several patient...

Background: Serum uric acid (UA) plays a key role in the development and progression of hypertension. We investigated the association of UA levels and indices of arterial function in a cohort of newly diagnosed, never treated hypertensive subjects. Methods: 1225 patients with a new diagnosis of mild...

Background: Prehypertensive subjects have a markedly increased risk of developing hypertension compared to normotensive subjects. Prehypertension is therefore an excellent model to study hemodynamics and arterial stiffness in the development of hypertension. Methods: We assessed hemodynamics and arterial...

Objective: Inflammation and early arterial damage are the possible mechanisms responsible for increased cardiovascular risk (CVR) in patients with metabolic syndrome (MetS). The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between C-reactive protein (CRP) and arterial parameters of macro- and...

It has been reported that augmentation index (AIx) increases with age, but that the increase is more prominent in younger subjects [1], and may even decrease with age in individuals over 50yrs [2]. We undertook a meta-analysis of the published literature of 9,551 individuals (5,659 male), aged 4 to 91...

Introduction: Patients with nocturnal blood pressure (BP) that fails to decline ≥10% compared with daytime BP (non-dippers) have increased mortality risk. This may be related to increased arterial stiffness and raised central BP whilst supine. This study aimed to test this hypothesis. We also sought...

Background: Asymmetric dimethylarginine (ADMA) is an inhibitor of nitric oxide production and is associated with endothelial dysfunction. Elevated plasma levels of ADMA have been demonstrated in patients with hypertension. The aim of the present study was to investigate the relationship between ADMA...

Introduction: To the best of our knowledge, any studies evaluated potential influence on peripheral arterial stiffness, measured by pulse wave velocity (PWV), of percoutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) and stenting. Methods: 150 patients were enrolled and underwent coronary angiography. In 68 patients...