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In this paper, we briefly revise some of the most widely applied methods to non-invasively assess pressure wave reflection (augmentation index) and arterial stiffness (pulse wave velocity; PWV) in clinical vascular research. It is clear that the pressure waveform alone provides insufficient information...

Objectives: To study whether inhibition of the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system has effects on arterial stiffness beyond blood pressure (BP) reduction alone. Methods: Hypertensive patients (age 54±12 years, 34% women) were randomized double-blind to ramipril (10 mg od, n=32) or doxazosin (8 mg od,...

Introduction: Sarcopenia, the loss of skeletal muscle mass and strength that occurs with advancing age [1] is correlated with functional decline and disability but little is known about its relationship with cardiovascular risk. Bioimpedence analysis (BIA) is a validated technique for measuring muscle...

Objective: To analyze the reliability and validity of Pulse Wave Analysis determined with the new wrist-worn tonometry. Methods: Cross sectional study including 254 subjects. Aged 51.9±13.4, being women 53%. Main measurements: Peripheral AIx (PAIx) and Central AIx (CAIx) by wrist-worn tonometry and...

Objective: To evaluate ventricular-arterial coupling (VAC), left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH), diastolic function and arterial stiffness in young and middle-aged men with uncomplicated arterial hypertension Methods: 97 young men aged 18–27 years (21,2±1,9 years, BP 156,5±14,0/98,5±9,1 mmHg) and 68...

Background: Aortic stiffness and pressure wave reflection have been found to be associated with age-related cerebral microvascular disease, but the underlying mechanism remains obscure. We hypothesized that cerebral (carotid) flow augmentation potentially mediates these associations. Methods: Doppler...

Background: There are no data on ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM) and arterial stiffness parameters in sub-Saharan African children. We performed 24-hour ABPM and pulse wave velocity (PWV) measurements in adolescents living in 2 slums in Nairobi, Kenya. Methods: We selected 1,100 11–17 year...

Background: Visit-to-visit blood pressure variability (BPV) is associated with adverse cardiovascular outcomes in different patients’ populations1–2. Arterial stiffness is a potential mechanism of increased visit-to-visit BPV3. Carotid–femoral PWV has become increasingly important for total cardiovascular...

Environment/Objectives: Several studies in different populations and conditions shown contradictory results about the effect of coffee on arterial stiffness (AS). Coffee consumption is high around the world and it is very important to define its CV effects. To evaluate the acute effects on haemodynamic...

Background: Cardiac output (CO) monitoring remains a salient challenge. The state-of-the-art is based on generalized transfer functions and parameter estimations from pooled clinical data, which do not necessarily reflect the state of the cardiovascular system in a patient-specific way. Here, we introduce...

The aim of the study was to assess arterial stiffness and its diagnostic and prognostic value in patients with arterial hypertension (AH) and heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF). Methods: In 93 stable patients (75% male, age 64±9 years (MSD), history of myocardial infarction 67%, diabetes...

Homebased exercise is often advocated to improve physical fitness in the aging population, especially when outdoor activity is not available. Yet we often have a limited understanding of its training effects for clinical uses. Aim: To investigate a short-term exercise training of standing core exercise...

The study aims to understand the interferon-gamma (IFN-γ) level and affecting factors in diabetes mellitus (DM) patients at Public Health Center (PHC). This cross-sectional study was conducted on 153 DM patients. The inclusion criteria were male or female patients over 18 years old diagnosed with DM...

Introduction: We questioned whether a single Windkessel (WK) adequately describes the circulation by estimating the radial arterial diastolic pressure-decay constant (tau) and combining this with systemic hemodynamic and arterial stiffness measurements. Methods: In the non-invasive cardiac laboratory,...

Background: Pulse wave velocity (PWV) in large arteries is a pressure-dependent marker of arterial stiffness. The retinal vasculature provides unique access to the microcirculation. There is inconsistency between reported values of retinal PWV (rPWV). The pressure dependency of rPWV was measured in-vivo...

Background: Aortic reservoir function is associated with increased cardiovascular events. Patients with chronic kidney disease in need of dialysis have increased aortic stiffness and reversal of the aortic-to-brachial stiffness gradient, which could impair aortic reservoir function. The aim of this study...

Introduction: Arterial stiffening is associated with structural and biomechanical alterations in the aorta. However, there are still gaps in our understanding as to how the structure and properties of arteries across the vasculature are altered with high PWV.Objective: To determine whether altered ultrastructural...

Introduction: Cardiovascular diseases are the primary cause of morbidity and mortality in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD). Aortic stiffness is a non-traditional risk factor in these patients. Using an animal model of CKD with vascular calcification, we reported that inflammation is involved...

Background: Middle age represents a life period where incidence of cardiovascular events typically augments. Our aim is to investigate any association between peripheral vascular rheology and distribution of coronary artery disease (CAD) in middle aged erectile dysfunction (ED) population. Methods:...

Arterial stiffness may influence the contour of the peripheral pulse, suggesting that contour analysis of the digital volume pulse (DVP) might be used to estimate peripheral blood pressure and a stiffness index (SI). The objective is to establish a transfer function that estimates the peripheral blood...

Background: Women with a history of pre-eclampsia (PE) are at higher risk of cardiovascular disease later in life. We evaluated the cardiovascular health of women who had PE in comparison with women who had normotensive pregnancies. Methods: We assessed heart rate-adjusted augmentation index (AIx SphygmoCor),...

Background: Pulse wave velocity (PWV) is independent predictor of cardiovascular outcomes. Antihypertensive treatment reduces PWV, but it is unknown whether this results from an unloading of stiffer elements in the arterial wall or a structural change in the wall. Methods: To distinguish between these...

Background: Pulse wave analysis from a brachial cuff permits ambulatory measurements of pulse wave velocity (PWV) and central blood pressure parameters. The diurnal variation of PWV in type 2 diabetes is unknown. Methods: We evaluated the Arteriograph24 which is a brachial cuff based equipment for estimating...

Purpose/Background/Objectives: Aortic stiffness assessed by carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity (PWV) is an important predictor to gauge the overall risk of hypertensive patients; nonetheless, it is underutilized in everyday practice. We derived a simple scoring system based on clinical variables that...

Background: Pulmonary artery distensibility and pulsatility has been studied in patients with COPD using cardiac MRI (CMRI) (1). However, pulmonary artery pulse wave velocity (PA- PWV) using ‘QA’ method (2) in CMRI has not been studied in this population. We hypothesized that patients with COPD have...

Background: CV risk exponentially increases as the number of damaged organs increases The Systemic Hemodynamic Atherosclerotic Syndrome (SHATS) represents a novel conceptualization of the CV continuum focusing on simultaneous multi-organ alteration. This is the first study operationally defining SHATS...

Background: High salt intake has been associated with structural and functional vascular changes.1 Objective: To correlate urinary sodium excretion with endothelial function and arterial stiffness in non-diabetic hypertensive patients. Methods: Cross-sectional study with non-diabetic hypertensive patients,...

Background/aim: ISH is usually considered more prevalent in aged individuals and associated to increased large artery stiffness. This study is aimed at identifying determinants of ISH in adult individuals. Methods: 20 individuals <60 years, referred to the Outpatient Hypertension Unit for high blood...

Background: Large artery stiffness is recognized as a strong, independent marker of cardiovascular risk, mainly through aortic pulse wave velocity (PWV). pOpmètre® is a new non-invasive method, which estimates aortic PWV through finger-toe (FT) wave analysis. In a previous study, Alivon et al. have shown...

Background and objective: Arterial stiffness (AS) reflects vascular damage. Our objective was to determine 1) the frequency of AS in community pharmacies, 2) if subjects with AS identified by brachial oscillometry have more CV risk factors than normal subjects, and 3) if the prevalence of AS varies upon...

The cardiovascular effects of long-distance and -duration activities and their relationship with arterial stiffness and cardiac biomarkers are still unclear. This study aimed to assess arterial stiffness and Central Blood Pressure (cBP) and correlate them with cardiac biomarkers in long-distance walkers...

Background: Wave intensity analysis (WIA) in the aorta offers important clinical and mechanistic insights but is difficult non-invasively. We performed WIA by combining high temporal resolution cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) flow velocity and non-invasive central blood pressure (BP) waveform...

Background: Increased Left Ventricular Mass Index (LVMI) is a well known risk factor for cardiac morbidity and mortality. Furthermore, it is widely recognized that clinical evolution and progression of established CV diseases are related to a range of psychological characteristics, which may partially...

Objective: Prior studies have suggested that the principal determinants of arterial stiffening are age, BP and others CV risk factors such as dyslipidemia and diabetes. However, scanty data are available on the role of psychological factors on arterial stiffness. The aim of the current cross-sectional...

Background: Flow-mediated slowing (FMS) assesses the slowing of pulse wave velocity (PWV) in response to reactive hyperaemia, to provide a measure of endothelial function. We assessed the reproducibility of FMS and whether the technique is sensitive to the influence of age. FMS was compared to the commonly...

Aim: Established essential hypertension (EH) is associated with increased arterial stiffness and peripheral resistance, but the extent of vascular changes in persons genetically predisposed for EH is uncertain. Methods: Participants from the Danish Hypertension Prevention Project (DHyPP) (having two...

Background: Cognitive impairment and elevated arterial stiffness are described in arterial hypertension (AH), but its correlations are not well studied. Objectives: To study the cognitive function at different domains and arterial properties in patients with AH stage 1 to 3 compared to normotensives...

Purpose: In MRI, thoracic aorta pulse wave velocity (TAPWV) is usually estimated by 2D phase contrast (PC) with either in plane or through plane velocity acquisition. Thanks to technological improvement, 4D PC with full coverage of the TA and 3 dimension velocity encoding thought time can be now achievable...

Introduction: Comparison of Mobil-O-Graph® with SphygmoCor® exclusively in treatment- naïve hypertensives has never been done. Aims of the study were to assess 1) intra- device agreement between both methods, 2) inter-device agreement between two surface measurements of SC (subtracted distance (cfPWVsub))...

Background: To date no definitive results exist about the relationship of Serum Uric Acid (SUA) and TOD in HT subjects. We sought to determine if such an association exist between SUA and subclinical cardiac, vascular and renal alterations in HT. Methods: We enrolled 632 consecutive outpatients, followed...

Purpose/Background/Objectives: Hypertension is associated with several markers of subclinical target organ damage (TOD). Short-term blood pressure variability (SBPV) is a prognostic factor for cardiovascular events in hypertensives. We hypothesised that there is a relationship between SBPV and TOD in...

Introduction: The PORT-VASPh Cohort was designed to contribute to a better understanding of vascular function in children and adolescents, mostly focusing PWV and other complementary aspects of arterial hemodynamics. Methods: The PORT-VASPh cohort is a prospective and observational study, with 953 children...

Background: Fibromuscular dysplasia (FMD) is a non-atherosclerotic, non-inflammatory vascular disease involving medium-sized muscular arteries, whose pathophysiology is still unknown. Objectives: We aimed at identifying systemic vascular alterations in usually non-affected arteries of patients with...

Background: We tested the association between birthweight and arterial stiffness measured by aortic pulse wave velocity (PWV) and cardio-ankle vascular index (CAVI) in a birth cohort of 30 year old Jamaicans. Methods: Participants were from the 1986 Jamaica Birth Cohort. Arterial stiffness was measured...

Obesity is associated with diabetes and an increased cardiovascular risk. Leptin-deficient mice (ob/ob) are used as model of metabolic disease: they are characterized by obesity and insulin-resistance. Aim of this work is to identify early cardiovascular alterations in young ob/ob mice using micro-ultrasound...

Background: Both the Sphygmocor (S) and Vicorder (V) devices can be used for Pulse Wave Analysis (PWA) and Velocity (PWV). We investigated if there were differences in the associations between markers of Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) and PWA and PWV variables as assessed by the two devices. Methods:...

Objective: In the present analysis of the VASOTENS study [1] baseline data, we checked whether organ damage of hypertension (TOD) i) is better associated with 24-hour central than peripheral BP and ii) is related to ambulatory arterial stiffness, estimated by pulse wave velocity (PWV) and augmentation...

A non-invasive approach for the estimation of mechanical efficiency through the calculation of the ratio between stroke work and HR-pressure product has been recently proposed by de Simone et al. This index, which expresses the amount of blood pumped in a single beat in 1 second by the heart, may be...

Aortic stiffness is now established as an independent marker of cardiovascular aging and cardiovascular risk. However, the specific role of the proximal aorta, specifically the ascending aorta, remains understudied. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), a non-invasive technique has recently been proposed...

Purpose: Changes in myocardial and arterial wall properties/function are consistently reported in patients with established cardiovascular disease1. However, few studies have reported these changes in early subclinical disease. The aim of the present study was to examine cardiac and vascular changes...