Importance of arterial stiffness in predicting cardiovascular events

INTRODUCTION: Cardiovascular events represent an important cause of morbidity and mortality in the entire population. Arterial stiffness is currently considered one of the most important risk factors for the development of cardiovascular events. The gold-standard for evaluating arterial stiffness is pulse wave velocity (PWV). Recent studies have demonstrated that PWV is an independent risk factor regarding the development of cardiovascular events, especially in certain categories of patients. MATERIAL AND METHODS: The development of cardiovascular events was assessed in 174 patients admitted in the Center of Internal Medicine, Fundeni Clinical Institute, between January 2011 - May 2012. Arterial stiffness was evaluated by measuring PWV using the Sphygmocor system (AtCor, Australia), which is based on the principle of applanation tonometry. The patients were monitored for the development of cardiovascular events (ischemic heart disease, heart failure, stroke, acute myocardial infarction) and for death of cardiovascular cause, over a median period of 51.5 months (43-60 months). RESULTS: Of the 174 patients, 81 (46.6%) were women and 93 (53.4%) were men. Mean age was 55.96 years. 93 of the 174 patients had chronic kidney failure in different stages (47.3% in stage V). Regarding PWV in the patient group, we obtained a mean score of 9.382. We observed a significant difference regarding the PWV level only for acute myocardial infarction and death between patients who developed these events and those who did not. CONCLUSIONS: Our study demonstrates that PWV increase can be positively associated with the occurrence of cardiovascular events, particularly in certain groups of patients.