Agreement of carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity and brachial-femoral pulse wave velocity when exploring different path lengths in young healthy individuals

Physiology 2023 (Harrogate, UK) (2023) Proc Physiol Soc 54, PCA020

Poster Communications: Agreement of carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity and brachial-femoral pulse wave velocity when exploring different path lengths in young healthy individuals

Eloise Paine1, Lee Stoner1, Hazel Brown1, James Faulkner1,

1University of Winchester Winchester United Kingdom, 2University of North Carolina Chapel Hill United States,

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Carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity (cfPWV) is the gold standard measure of arterial stiffness (Laurent et al, 2006). However, utilising the carotid artery can be challenging due to subcutaneous fat, venous artefacts and breathing affecting the quality of the waveform. Brachial-femoral (bfPWV) has been shown to correlate well with cfPWV (Baier et al, 2018; Keehn et al, 2014) and therefore may be beneficial when measuring central arterial stiffness, whilst avoiding the difficult nature of the carotid artery. Limited research has explored bfPWV and the true value path length, which is imperative when measuring PWV. As such, the aim of this study was to look at the best agreement of bfPWV path length compared with the gold standard cfPWV for both the Vicorder and Ultrasound in a supine and seated posture. Thirty-one young healthy participants (Male: n= 20, Female: n= 11, Age: 24.8 ± 5.2 y, Weight: 74.9 ± 13.6 kg, Height: 1.75 ± 0.8 m, BMI: 24.7±3.1kg/m2) were recruited for this study. Ethical approval was obtained from the institutional human research ethics committee. Participants visited the laboratory on one occasion, Doppler ultrasound measures were taken at the common carotid, brachial and femoral arteries. The Vicorder was used to measure cfPWV and bfPWV, path length measures explored were sternal notch to umbilicus, subtraction (sternal notch to midpoint of femoral cuff minus sternal notch to midpoint of brachial cuff) and midpoint of the brachial cuff to midpoint of the femoral cuff methods. All measures were taken in a supine and seated posture. The Vicorder showed better overall agreement across all path lengths (rho =0.62-0.67) when measuring bfPWV compared to the ultrasound (r=0.44-0.57) in the supine posture. The subtraction method showed the best agreement in the supine (rho=0.62) and seated (rho=0.45) posture when using the Vicorder device, and in the supine (r=0.57) posture when using the ultrasound device. The sternal notch to umbilicus demonstrated the best agreement when using the ultrasound in a seated posture (r=0.42), and when comparing it to the gold standard (cfPWV) measure in supine and seated posture. The findings of this study suggest that bfPWV should be conducted in a supine posture with the subtraction method as the arterial path length. However, sternal notch to umbilicus could also be used if participants are unable to outstretch their arm. The Vicorder device should be used rather than the ultrasound due to the data be collected simultaneously. 



Where applicable, experiments conform with Society ethical requirements.

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