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 r technology. Methods: Anthropometric and hemodynamic measurements for 90 volunteers were made by two observers using the 24-hour blood pressure monitoring system, BPLab (R), 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.