Central aortic blood pressure, augmentation index, and reflected wave transit time: reproducibility and repeatability of data obtained by oscillometry

BACKGROUND: The evidence suggests that arterial stiffness acts as an independent predictor of general as well as cardiovascular mortality, strokes in patients with arterial hypertension, type 2 diabetes mellitus in the elderly, and in the general population. The oscillometric method measures parameters of arterial stiffness by applying special methods of processing oscillograms. This is a study of the reproducibility and repeatability of central aortic systolic blood pressure (SBP), augmentation index, and reflected wave transit time measured by Vasotens(®) technology. METHODS: Anthropometric and hemodynamic measurements for 90 volunteers were made by two observers using the 24-hour blood pressure monitoring system, BPLab(®), with Vasotens technology in “office” mode, over a period of two days and always at the same time in the morning. Initialization of the device was performed prior to each measurement cycle for each participant. RESULTS: Analysis of short-term repeatability and reproducibility data for central aortic systolic blood pressure, reflected wave transit time, and augmentation index did not reveal any statistically significant differences. For observer A, SBP was 0.11 ± 7.53 mmHg and aortic SBP was 0.26 ± 6.11 mmHg; for observer B, SBP was 0.14 ± 8.42 and aortic SBP was 0.2 ± 7.25 mmHg. Short-term reproducibility for the different observers with averaging of both measurements was 0.36 ± 5.69 mmHg for SBP and 0.37 ± 6.7 mmHg for aortic SBP; the next day, repeatability for observer A was 0.52 ± 10.7 mmHg for SBP and 0.73 ± 8.98 mmHg for aortic SBP. CONCLUSION: BPLab with Vasotens technology has good reproducibility and repeatability, and can be recommended for clinical vascular risk estimation.