Age and gender effects on arterial stiffness differ between local (carotid) and central measurements in healthy middle-aged individuals, which must be considered when designing or interpreting arterial stiffness studies.
The relation with age and gender of local and central stiffness measures is not the same over the age range 35-55 in apparently healthy men and women. Depending on the central stiffness parameter used, age-gender effects evident at the carotid artery are or are not found centrally. Though the relevance of these differences requires further evaluation in a longitudinal study with outcome data, they need to be kept in mind when designing or interpreting results from arterial stiffness evaluation studies.
Vermeersch et al. (Mon,) studied this question.