Progress and a prospective: brachial-ankle pulse wave velocity for assessing cardiovascular risks

It is urgent to establish a model of cardiovascular risk assessment.Pulse wave velocity(PWV), which is increased along with advancing age, high blood pressure, diabetes, and other traditional cardiovascular risks, could be used as a risk marker for global cardiovascular risk assessment.Carotid-femoral PWV has been widely applied in Western countries and used as a gold standard for arterial stiffness.However, carotid-femoral PWV has not been widely carried out in China, possibly because of methodological difficulties.Brachial-ankle PWV(baPWV)is simple, economical, non-invasive and easily repeatable, and many researches on baPWV have been widely studied in recent years.Many evidences have indicated that baPWV is positively and independently correlated with the most traditional cardiovascular risk factors and arteriosclerosis-detecting indexes.Moreover, the simultaneous evaluation of the ankle-brachial index(ABI)could allow further risk stratification of high-risk individuals, which is indispensable for the management of aged people with multiple risks and many vascular diseases. Key words: Brachial-ankle pulse wave velocity; Arteriosclerosis; Risk factors