A New Approach for Assessment of Pulse Wave Velocity at Radial Artery in Young and Middle-Aged Healthy Humans

Pulse wave velocity (PWV), based on two-site measurement, is a well-known predictor of arterial stiffness. Interest focused increasingly on simplifying the PWV measurement results in attempts at determining it at a single site. We aimed to validate a new tonometric method (IIM-2010A) for assessment of PWV at radial artery in healthy subjects <65 years of age. PWV measurements were performed in 46 healthy adults (25 men and 21 women) aged 21–65 years (39.6 ± 15.5 years) using Complior device and IIM-2010A respectively. In a subgroup of 21 humans, the measurements were repeated after 1 week using IIM-2010A with the same protocol. There was a strong correlation between PWV obtained by IIM-2010A and PWV obtained by Complior, as well as between pulse transit time (PTT) measurements (r = 0.79 and r = 0.85, respectively, P < 0.01 for both). Although PTT was significantly lower measured by IIM-2010A, no significant difference was found in PWV. The mean difference of PWV with SD was -0.1 ± 1.2 m/s between two repeated measurements at intervals of 1 week. Bland–Altman's plot indicated no trend for the reproducibility of measurements to vary with their underlying mean value. Intraclass correlation coefficient (= 0.87) confirmed this excellent week-to-week reproducibility of PWV. The method provides a simple, easily-obtainable, and reproducible measurement of PWV in young and middle-aged subjects, and has potential to detect premature arterial aging for the management of primary prevention.