Assessment of Carotid Arterial Stiffness in Community Settings With ARTSENS®

We investigate the field feasibility of carotid stiffness measurement using ARTSENS® Touch and report the first community-level data from India.

In an analytical cross-sectional survey among 1074 adults, we measured specific stiffness index ([Formula: see text]), pressure-strain elastic modulus ([Formula: see text]), arterial compliance (AC), and one-point pulse wave velocity (PWV[Formula: see text]) from the left common carotid artery. Data for established risk factors (waist circumference, blood pressure, plasma glucose, triglycerides, and HDL-C) were also collected. The association of carotid stiffness with age, gender, hypertension/diabetes, smoking, and clustering of risk factors was studied.

Measurements were repeatable with a relative difference (RD) between consecutive readings of < 5% for blood pressure and < 15% for [Formula: see text]% of arterial diameter values. The average RDs for [Formula: see text], [Formula: see text], AC, and PWV[Formula: see text], were 20.51%, 22.31%, 25.10%, and 14.13%, respectively. Typical range for stiffness indices among females and males were [Formula: see text]: 8.12 ± 3.59 vs 6.51 ± 2.78, [Formula: see text]: 113.24 ± 56.12 kPa vs 92.33 ± 40.65 kPa, PWV[Formula: see text]: 6.32 ± 1.38 ms^-1 vs 5.81 ± 1.16 ms^-1, and AC: 0.54 ± 0.36 mm² kPa^-1 vs 0.72 ± 0.38 mm² kPa^-1. Mean [Formula: see text], [Formula: see text], and PWV[Formula: see text] increased (and mean AC decreased) across decades of age; the trend persisted even after excluding hypertensives and subjects with diabetes. The odds ratio of presence of multiple risk factors for [Formula: see text] kPa and/or PWV[Formula: see text] ms^-1 was ≥ 2.12 or above in males. In females, it was just above 2.00 for [Formula: see text] kPa and/or PWV[Formula: see text] ms^-1 and increased to ≥ 3.33 for [Formula: see text] kPa and ≥ 3.25 for PWV[Formula: see text] ms^-1.

The study demonstrated the feasibility of carotid stiffness measurement in a community setting. A positive association between the risk factors and carotid artery stiffness provides evidence for the device's use in resource-constrained settings. Clinical Impact: The device paves the way for epidemiological and clinical studies that are essential for establishing population-level nomograms for wide-spread use of carotid stiffness in clinical practice and field screening of 'at-risk' subjects.