Aortic and arterial pulse wave velocity in patients with coronary heart disease of different severity; pp. 167–176

The objective of the present study was to compare aortic and arterial pulse wave velocity (PWV) in coronary heart disease (CHD) patients and healthy young volunteers. Signals were obtained from 28 subjects. Severe coronary heart disease was confirmed by coronary angiography. Aortic PWV was measured using the TENSIOMed Arteriograph. Four arterial PWVs were gathered using a PowerLab 4/20T. The major finding of this study was that patients with CHD had increased aortic PWV compared with healthy subjects (P < 0.01). It was also found that in the CHD group, aortic PWV had a positive correlation with arterial PWV2, PWV3 and PWV4 (P < 0.01). Our study showed that difference in aortic and arterial PWV between CHD patients with different atherosclerosis grade was not significant. Further PWV studies should be focused on patients with pronounced risk factors but without established cardiovascular disease that allow to select patients with early phase of atherosclerosis.