Assessment of novel blood pressure corrected cardio-ankle vascular index in response to acute blood pressure changes

Background: Cardio-ankle vascular index (CAVI) has long been considered a measure of arterial stiffness independent of short-term changes in blood pressure (BP) [1]. Recently and theoretically, CAVI was found to be partially affected by actual BP, thus, a novel BP-corrected index, CAVI0, was proposed to diminish these effects [2,3]. Direct, repeated measures experimental data comparing CAVI’s and CAVI0’s acute blood pressure dependence is lacking. Hence, the aim of this study was to assess the effects of short-term changes of BP on CAVI0 in comparison with standard CAVI.

Methods: 60 healthy adults were examined using vascular screening system VaSera 1500 N (Fukuda Denshi Co., Tokyo, Japan) during four examination periods lasting 5 minutes – baseline, cold pressor test (CPT), recovery period, and isometric handgrip exercise (IHE). CAVI and cardiovascular parameters for calculation of CAVI0 were measured after baseline, at the peak of pressor response to CPT, after recovery period, and at the peak of pressor response to IHE. CAVI, CAVI0, and mean BP were assessed for all periods.

Results: CAVI significantly increased during CPT compared to baseline rest (p = 0.008), returned to baseline values during recovery period (p = 0.011 compared to CPT), and significantly increased during IHE compared to recovery period (p = 0.002). No significant changes of CAVI0 were found. CAVI significantly correlated with changes in mean BP (p = 0.012; multilevel regression); CAVI0 did not (p = 0.570).

Conclusion: In this repeated measures, experimental, acute study, CAVI showed short-term blood pressure dependence, whereas CAVI0 did not.