title: Brachial artery diameter measurement: a tool to simplify non-invasive vascular assessment.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The mechanisms of vascular remodeling have attracted great interest since it is a phenomenon related to cardiovascular diseases. We would like to examine studies that contributed to clarify the remodeling mechanisms, to explore the different faces of atherosclerosis process.
  
  
  RESULTS
  A number of invasive and non-invasive vascular assessment methods were developed, to detect the early sign of atherosclerosis. It became clear that the invasive tests were not applicable to large-scale studies. Consequently, a non-invasive test was developed. Studies showed that the endothelial function evaluation is a predictor of future cardiac events in individuals at cardiovascular risk and in those with established disease. However, analyzing several works, an interesting concept emerged, i.e., the inverse relation between endothelium-dependent dilation and vessel size, since large vessel tend not to dilate significantly. This notion emphasized the role of basal diameter on vascular response. In particular, as brachial artery diameter is the measure on which FMD is based, it could add more information in clinical evaluation, simplifying the assessment. Several studies showed that morphological change of brachial artery is a better indicator of the extent of coronary disease rather than FMD. Other studies showed that brachial diameter has predictive significance in the stratification of cardiovascular risk.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Brachial diameter is a useful and simple tool. It should be incorporated into the overall assessment of cardiovascular risk but further studies are warranted to determine the final place of brachial diameter assessment in routine clinical setting.
authors.affiliation: Clinical Nutrition Unit, Department of Clinical and Exp. Medicine, University Magna Graecia, Catanzaro, Italy. tmontalcini@unicz.it
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Montalcini
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Gorgone
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Gazzaruso
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Romeo
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Bosco
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Pujia
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D050197:Atherosclerosis / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology; D001916:Brachial Artery / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000503:physiopathology*; D003327:Coronary Disease / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology; D004730:Endothelium, Vascular / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000503:physiopathology; D006801:Humans; D023421:Models, Animal; D012307:Risk Factors