The Association of Radial Artery Pulse Wave Variables with the Pulse Wave Velocity and Echocardiographic Parameters in Hypertension

This study aims at exploring the cardiovascular pathophysiological mechanism of TCM (traditional Chinese medicine) pulse by detecting the correlation between radial artery pulse wave variables and pulse wave velocity/echocardiographic parameters. Two hundred Chinese subjects were enrolled in this study, which were grouped into health control group, hypertension group, and hypertensive heart disease group. Physical data obtained in this study contained TCM pulse images at “Guan” position of the left hand, pulse wave velocity, and echocardiographic parameters. Linear and stepwise regression analysis was performed to assess the association of radial artery pulse wave variables with pulse wave velocity and echocardiographic parameters in the total population and in each different group. After adjusting for related confounding factors, decrease of t(1), t(5) and increase of h(1), h(3)/h(1) were statistically associated with arterial stiffness in the total population (P<0.05). Moreover, the correlation study in each group showed that the decrease of both t(3) and h(5) was also related to arterial stiffness (P<0.05). In terms of echocardiographic parameters, the height of dicrotic wave indicated by h(5) was the most relevant pulse wave variable. For the health control, h(5) was negatively associated with interventricular septal thickness (VST) and left ventricular posterior wall thickness (PWT) (P<0.05), while for the hypertension population and those with target-organ damage to heart, increase of h(5) might be associated with decrease of ejection fraction (EF) and increase of all the remaining echocardiographic parameters especially for left ventricular end-systolic diameter (LVDs) and Left ventricular end-diastolic diameter (LVDd) (P<0.05). In conclusion, we found radial artery pulse wave variables were in association with the arterial stiffness and echocardiographic changes in hypertension, which would provide an experimental basis for cardiovascular pathophysiological mechanism of radial artery pulse wave variables.