title: A New Method for Cerebral Arterial Stiffness by Measuring Pulse Wave Velocity Using Transcranial Doppler.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Pulse wave velocity (PWV) has been regarded as the "gold standard" measurement of arterial stiffness (AS), but it is still only used in the assessment of central and peripheral arteries. We constructed a new method to evaluate cerebral AS by measuring PWV using transcranial Doppler (TCD).
  
  
  METHODS
  In all, 90 healthy subjects who received annual health screening were consecutively enrolled in this study between January 2011 and June 2013. Data on clinical characteristics, brachium-ankle (ba) PWV, and carotid-cerebral (cc) PWV measured with our newly constructed method by two experienced operators were recorded. cc PWV was calculated as the distance between two points in the common carotid artery and proximal part of ipsilateral middle cerebral artery, which was divided by the pulse transit time between these two points where the pulse was measured using TCD.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The value of cc PWV was 499.3±78.6 cm/s. Correlation between cc PWV and ba PWV in the assessment of AS was r=0.794 (P＜0.001). The concordance between both the above mentioned methods was good. Interobserver and intraobserver reliability using interclass correlation for measuring cc PWV were 0.815 (P＜0.001) and 0.939 (P＜0.001), respectively. In multivariable analysis, older age (β=4.51, P＜0.001) and increased diastolic blood pressure (β=2.39, P＜0.001) were independently associated with higher cc PWV.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  cc PWV measured using TCD may be a promising method for the assessment of human cerebral AS, which is independently associated with age and diastolic blood pressure.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Neuroscience, the Second Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University.
authors.forename: Xian
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Fu
authors.forename: Chuming
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.forename: Ka Sing
authors.initials: KS
authors.lastname: Wong
authors.forename: Xiangyan
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Qingchun
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Gao
mesh_terms: D002536:Cerebral Arteries / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000473:pathology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D002537:Intracranial Arteriosclerosis / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000473:pathology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D063177:Pulse Wave Analysis / Q000379:methods*; D017585:Ultrasonography, Doppler, Transcranial / Q000379:methods*; D059289:Vascular Stiffness / Q000502:physiology*