The relationship between pulse pressure(PP) variation and ambulatory arterial stiffness index

Abstract

Background: Recently AASI was known to be a predictor for future cardiovascular event. Theoretically there are two occasions increasing AASI, i.e. The higher AASI, the more extremely high PP accompanied by low blood pressure(BP) and extremely low PP with high blood pressure were included. And At the same time, the extreme PPs are included in the criteria of measurement errors. We investigated the relationship between PP and AASI using PP variability parameters to testify how AASI is associated with extremes of PP. Methods: From the ABPM data of 120 never treated hypertensive patients, raw data were plotted to get an AASI and the mean and standard deviation of PP(PPmean and PPsd) were calculated. And mean and standard deviation of PP/SBP(PP/SBPmean and PP/SBPsd were also calculated. The number of measurement errors in ABPM data and the presence of consecutive errors were also checked. Results: The correlation coefficients between PP and AASI were 0.370, 0.597, 0.562 for PPmean, PPsd, and PP/SBPsd, respectively (p<0.0001). PP/SBPmean has no correlation with AASI. But there is was no relationship between numbers and/or consecutiveness of measurement errors and AASI. Conclusion: This study shows that not only mean pulse pressure but also the pulse pressure variation(PPsd) are factors related to AASI. And PPsd has stronger relationship with AASI than PPmean. This means AASI reflects the PP variation. Factors affecting PP variation needs further study.