The relationship between the acute changes of the systolic blood pressure and the brachial-ankle pulse wave velocity.
BACKGROUND
The brachial-ankle pulse wave velocity (baPWV) is a useful parameter to assess arterial stiffness. However, it is difficult to evaluate arterial stiffness in hypertensive patients because the baPWV is affected by the blood pressure itself. This study was designed to estimate the relationship between the change of the blood pressure parameters and the baPWV (deltabaPWV) when hypertensive patients were subjected to an acute reduction of blood pressure.


METHODS
Thirty patients with essential hypertension and whose blood pressure was higher than 140/90 mmHg were enrolled. In all the patients, the blood pressure and baPWV were measured using an automatic waveform analyzer with the patients at a resting state. When the reduction of blood pressure was more than 10 mmHg after sublingual administration of nifedipine 10 mg, then the blood pressure and baPWV were measured again in the same manner and then they were compared with the baseline values. Spearman's correlation and multiple linear regression tests were performed to estimate the relationship between the change of the blood pressure parameters (deltaSBP, deltaDBP, deltaMAP and deltaPP) and the deltabaPWV.


RESULTS
The baPWV was significantly decreased shortly after the administration of nifedipine (1903.6+/-305.2 cm/sec vs. 1716+/-252.0 cm/sec, respectively, p<0.01). The deltabaPWV was correlated with the deltaSBP (r=0.550, p<0.01), deltaDBP (r=0.386, p<0.05), deltaMAP (r=0.441, p<0.05), and deltaPP (r=0.442. p<0.05). On the multiple regression analysis, the deltaSBP was the only significant variable for predicting the deltabaPWV, and the linear equation was deltabaPWV=8.7xSBP-48.


CONCLUSIONS
The baPWV is affected by the systolic blood pressure level to a large degree and careful attention must be paid to the blood pressure level when evaluating arterial stiffness with using the baPWV.
Park
Hun-Jun
HJ
Division of Cardiology, Department of Internal Medicine, The Catholic University of Korea College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
Rho
Tai-Ho
TH
Park
Chan Seok
CS
Jang
Sung Won
SW
Shin
Woo-Seung
WS
Oh
Yong-Seog
YS
Lee
Man-Young
MY
Cho
Eun-Ju
EJ
Seung
Ki-Bae
KB
Kim
Jae-Hyung
JH
Choi
Kyu-Bo
KB
D000286:Administration, Sublingual; D000368:Aged; D001783:Blood Flow Velocity; D001794:Blood Pressure / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000502:physiology; D001916:Brachial Artery / Q000503:physiopathology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D006973:Hypertension / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000503:physiopathology*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009543:Nifedipine / Q000008:administration & dosage; D011674:Pulse; D013599:Systole / Q000502:physiology; D014665:Vasodilator Agents / Q000008:administration & dosage
D014665:Vasodilator Agents; D009543:Nifedipine