Artery Research

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Volume 21, Issue C, March 2018, Pages 63 - 68

Stiff vessels approached in a flexible way: Advancing quantification and interpretation of arterial stiffness☆

Authors
Bart Sproncka, b, c, *
aDepartment of Biomedical Engineering, CARIM School for Cardiovascular Diseases, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands
bDepartment of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, Australia
cDepartment of Biomedical Engineering, School of Engineering & Applied Science, Yale University, New Haven, CT, United States
☆

Review linked to Career Development Lecture at the Artery 17 conference in Pisa, Italy (12–14 October 2017)

*Dept. of Biomedical Engineering, School of Engineering & Applied Science, Yale University, 55 Prospect Street, New Haven, CT 06511, United States. E-mail address: bart.spronck@yale.edu.
Corresponding Author
Bart Spronck
Received 20 November 2017, Accepted 20 November 2017, Available Online 13 December 2017.
DOI
10.1016/j.artres.2017.11.006How to use a DOI?
Keywords
Pulse wave velocity; Blood pressure correction; Constitutive modelling
Abstract

Introduction: Although pulse wave velocity (PWV), a proxy of arterial stiffness, is a strong predictor of cardiovascular complications, it is confounded by blood pressure (BP) and heart rate at the time of examination. Furthermore, establishing whether an artery behaves stiffer or less stiff does not inform a clinician on the cause of the stiffening.

Quantification of arterial stiffness: This paper focuses on BP as a confounder of PWV. We developed a method to patient-specifically determine the dependence of PWV on BP — on average 1 m/s per 10 mmHg diastolic BP — and used it to disentangle BP-dependent and -independent stiffening in hypertension and cancer patients. We furthermore showed that the so-called cardio-ankle vascular index (CAVI) — a measure deemed BP-independent — shows a residual BP-dependence that is readily correctable using a modified equation (CAVI0). Both developed methods are directly applicable to clinical measurements in individual patients.

Interpretation of arterial stiffness: We developed a computer modelling procedure to disentangle contributions of the individual wall components — collagen, elastin, and smooth muscle — to arterial stiffening as observed in patients. Our model-based approach shows that with ageing, the biomechanical phenotype shifts from elastin-dominated to collagen-dominated load bearing.

Model-based assessment of arterial wall mechanics provides a promising tool to further improve interpretation of arterial stiffness measurements in patients. Further development of such methodology applied to various mouse models may improve the understanding and interpretation of arterial stiffening in ageing and disease.

Copyright
© 2017 Association for Research into Arterial Structure and Physiology. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Open Access
This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license.

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<Previous Article In Issue
Next Article In Issue>
Journal
Artery Research
Volume-Issue
21 - C
Pages
63 - 68
Publication Date
2017/12/13
ISSN (Online)
1876-4401
ISSN (Print)
1872-9312
DOI
10.1016/j.artres.2017.11.006How to use a DOI?
Copyright
© 2017 Association for Research into Arterial Structure and Physiology. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Open Access
This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license.

Cite this article

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TY  - JOUR
AU  - Bart Spronck
PY  - 2017
DA  - 2017/12/13
TI  - Stiff vessels approached in a flexible way: Advancing quantification and interpretation of arterial stiffness☆
JO  - Artery Research
SP  - 63
EP  - 68
VL  - 21
IS  - C
SN  - 1876-4401
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.artres.2017.11.006
DO  - 10.1016/j.artres.2017.11.006
ID  - Spronck2017
ER  -