Pulse Wave Velocity in Patients with Coronary Artery Disease or Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

OBJECTIVE: To check whether the presence of coronary artery disease (CAD) or type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM) has a differentiating effect on arterial stiffness assessed with pulse wave velocity (PWV)--a simple, reproducible and clinically feasible measure of arterial stiffening. METHODS AND RESULTS: The mean age of 101 participants was 63.5 +/- 19.7 years. Fifty-one % of them had CAD, 31.0% had DM and 52.5% were hypertensive subjects. The aortic PWV ranged from 3.40 to 27.50 m/s, with an average of 1.73 +/- 4.69 m/s. PWV was significantly higher (P < 0.01) in both CAD and DM positive groups as compared with CAD and DM negatives, respectively. After adjustment for established co-variables, patients with CAD had significantly higher PWV when compared to CAD negatives (13.0 vs. 10.5 m/s, P < 0.01). After adjustment, DM did not seem to affect PWV. CONCLUSIONS: CAD patients had higher values of PWV when compared to those without the disease. DM, a metabolic equivalent of arterial damage, after adjustment for possible confounders, did not seem to contribute per se to arterial stiffening. The presence of high PWV values in that group of patients should be viewed as an indicator of established widespread atherosclerosis possibly affecting the coronary arteries.