Estimation of shear-stress-induced endothelial nitric oxide production from flow-mediated dilation

Vascular endothelial function assessment yields important diagnostic and prognostic information on patients with (or at risk of) cardiovascular diseases. Flow-mediated dilation (FMD) is the most widely used noninvasive method for assessing the endothelial function. In this method, the magnitude of FMD is used as a surrogate marker for the endothelial function. However, because vasodilation is affected by several other factors as well, the details of how this marker represents the endothelial function are not fully understood. Previously, we developed a mathematical model for vasodilation with intra- and intercellular pathways. In this study, we estimated the shear-stress-induced endothelial nitric oxide production from FMD measurements using the model. The results suggested that the accuracy of the estimated endothelial function obeys the characteristics of the shear stress added to the vascular wall. Furthermore, we showed that the FMD response describes not only the endothelial function but also vascular wall characteristics.