Article
A new and simple method assessing pulse wave velocity (PWV) by analysing brachial artery oscillometric pulses
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Published: | November 11, 2004 |
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Outline
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Increased PWV on the aorta is an independent risk factor for high cardiovascular mortality. The non-invasive measurement of the PWV is becoming more and more used method, however the costs both of the devices and the accomplishment of the measurements are quite high, which hamper the wide use of the method in the everyday practice.
On the other hand, during oscillometric blood pressure measurement very informative pulse curves could be recognized and recorded with sufficient technology. This approach is especially promising, because the performance of an oscillometric blood pressure measurement is very simple, does not require any trained medical staff.
In our scientific group we studied the pulse curves, received by a high quality oscillometric recorder from the brachial artery and we have developed a system, by which we were able to assess the aortic PWV from the brachial artery oscillometric curves.
We compared the received aortic PWV values by our method with the aortic PWV values, received by Complior device, which is accepted as a clinically validated system for measuring aortic PWV.
Our preliminary results showed unexpected, but very positive results, because the differences of the measured aortic PWV values between Complior and our system were less than 10% in all of the cases.
Our preliminary data are very encouraging, because by the method we have developed, a simple, frequently repeatable, inexpensive and reliable technology for routine clinical use to measure the aortic PWV could be provided.