Noninvasive Estimation of Aortic Stiffness Through Different Approaches

Area of Science:

• Cardiovascular Physiology
• Biomedical Engineering
• Clinical Diagnostics

Background:

• Aortic stiffness is a key indicator of cardiovascular health.
• Aortic pulse wave velocity (PWV) is a standard, noninvasive measure of aortic stiffness.
• Various noninvasive devices exist to estimate aortic PWV.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare the accuracy of commonly used noninvasive devices for estimating aortic pulse wave velocity (PWV).
• To validate noninvasive aortic PWV measurements against invasive gold-standard methods.
• To identify reliable noninvasive devices for assessing aortic stiffness.

Main Methods:

• 102 patients undergoing coronary angiography had aortic PWV measured invasively.
• Seven noninvasive devices were used to estimate aortic PWV.
• Noninvasive measurements were compared with invasive aortic PWV and with each other.

Main Results:

• Carotid-femoral PWV devices (Complior Analyse, PulsePen ET/ETT, SphygmoCor) demonstrated strong agreement with invasive measurements (r > 0.64).
• Finger-toe PWV (pOpmètre) showed weak correlation with invasive and carotid-femoral PWV (r < 0.41).
• Devices using proprietary algorithms (BPLab, Mobil-O-Graph) showed weaker agreement and potential bias compared to carotid-femoral methods.

Conclusions:

• Noninvasive devices measuring carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity are reliable for assessing aortic stiffness.
• Finger-toe PWV and devices with proprietary algorithms showed limitations in accuracy.
• Clinical use of aortic PWV should prioritize validated carotid-femoral measurement techniques.