Assessment of relationships between blood pressure, pulse wave velocity and digital volume pulse

Aortic arterial stiffness is an independent predictor of cardiovascular risk. Pulse wave velocity (PWV) is the most validated and universally accepted measure of arterial stiffness. The Digital Volume Pulse (DVP) is an accurate and non invasive method to obtain information on the pressure pulse waveform, and provides two indexes: stiffness index (SI_DVP) which relates with large artery stiffness, and the reflection index (RI_DVP) which relates with vascular tone. SI_DVP has been previously correlated with cfPWV (carotid-femoral PWV), however, the inguinal location of the employed transducer provokes a strong psychological impact on the patients, which may reduce reproducibility. By contrast, measurement of abPWV (ankle-brachial pulse wave velocity) minimizes this psychological stress. Our aim was to evaluate the relationship among blood pressure parameters and abPWV; and the relationship among abPWV, SI_DVP and RI_DVP in health subjects.