In vivo measurement of arterial stiffness with LDV, applanation tonometry and ultrasound

Subtitle:a preliminary validation

It has been shown that in cardiovascular risk management, stiffness of large arteries has a very good predictive value for cardiovascular disease and overall mortality. This parameter can be estimated from the pulse wave velocity (PWV) measured between the common carotid artery (CCA) and the femoral artery (FA). However, current methods to determine carotid-femoral PWV suffer from several shortcomings. We propose a novel, non-contact laser Doppler vibrometry (LDV) technique, for evaluating carotid PWV, directly from the CCA. We measured PWV directly on the CCA with the novel LDV method, in 9 young male healthy volunteers. Moreover, we measured PWV between the CCA and the FA, both with LDV and an established commercial method based on applanation tonometry. Finally, PWV and dimensional parameters of the CCA were determined locally with ultrasound (US) echography. Our results show good correlation between methods for measurement of carotid-femoral PWV, and values for arterial PWV as measured with LDV are overall in the same range as those obtained with US echography.

Publication year:2013