Influence of various legwear during arterial stiffness measurement

Carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity (cfPWV) is widely used to measure arterial stiffness. The type of legwear worn by participants during the measurement may introduce variabilities because different fabric materials and thicknesses may disturb arterial waveforms. Therefore, we investigated the impact of common legwear on cfPWV measured using tonometry and oscillometry. We studied 50 adults (36 women) varying widely in age (19-78 years). We evaluated cfPWV using two commonly used devices that detect femoral pulses using tonometric and cuff-based oscillometric sensors. The participants wore thin medical shorts as the reference condition, khaki pants, sweatpants, and athletic shorts, with an optional bare skin condition (optimum control) with 10 min of rest between measurements. Both devices produced similar cfPWV among different legwear with no significant systematic differences. The range of cfPWV was 647-649 cm/s for the tonometric device and 482-500 cm/s for the oscillometric device across different types of legwear. Mean values of cfPWV measured with a bare skin condition did not differ significantly from other legwear. No data output rates were 13% for khaki, 6% for sweatpants, 3% for medical shorts, athletic shorts, and bare skin using the tonometry while the oscillometric device had a 0% no data output rate among all conditions. We concluded that relatively thin legwear did not appear to affect arterial stiffness as assessed by cfPWV. However, stiffer legwear, such as khaki pants, presents a challenge to detect femoral pulses when using a tonometric sensor.