Background Aortic or central pulse wave velocity (PWV) - the parameter describing arterial stiffness seems to be one of the most important and universal indices estimating vascular changes in arterial hypertension. The examination of arterial stiffness among the patients with arterial hypertension in the following years will have a chance to stay a routine procedure. Thus indicate how important will be the choice of the most optimal method for arterial stiffness assessment in generally and particularly for PWV measurement. The aim of this study was to compare the aortic pulse wave velocity measurement results obtained in the group of patients with arterial hypertension by three different types of devices: Complior^®, SphygmoCor^® and Arteriograph as well as to determine the factors influencing PWV in this group.
Material and methods Study population consisted of 64 patients with mild to moderate primary arterial hypertension, 39 male and 25 female (mean age = 54.6 ± 13.6 yrs.) In this group we performed in the same time PWV examination using three mentioned above devices.
Results PWV measured by Complior device (10.2 ± 2.7 m/s) was significantly higher than obtained using SphygmoCor (9.54 ± 2.6 m/s, p < 0.001) or Arteriograph (9.2 ± 2.5 m/s, p < 0.001). PWV values obtained by each device were in significant correlations with each other: PWV-Complior vs. PWV-SphygmoCor, r = 0.96 (p < 0.001); PWV-Complior vs. PWV-Arteriograph, r = 0.41 (p < 0.01); PWV-Arteriograph vs. PWV-SphygmoCor, r = 0.34 (p < 0.05). In the Bland-Altman analysis performed for each pair of PWVs (obtained by compared devices) the plot - means/differences indicate that measured values were comparable i.e. differences/means below 1.96 SD. In the multiple regression models PWV-SphygmoCor depends significantly on age (p = 0.022, r = 0.10, R² = 0.65), PWV-Complior on age (p = 0.001, r = 0.10, R² = 0.63), heart rate (p = 0.028, r =0.07, R² = 0.63) and central (aortic) pulse pressure (p = 0.019, r = 0.007, R² = 0.63). PWV-Arteriograph at R2 = 0.48 depends significantly negatively on male gender (p = 0.013, r = –4.46), body height (p = 0.023, r = –0.27), and positively on brachial pulse pressure (p = 0.014, r = 0.08) and central pulse pressure (p = 0.023, r = 0.11).
Conclusions Aortic PWV values measured by Complior device were higher than obtained using SphygmoCor and Arteriograph, two last devices did not differ in this matter. All three devices measured the same variable aortic PWV with comparable accuracy. Among patients with arterial hypertension age, gender, body height, heart rate and pulse pressure influenced significantly aortic PWV.