Arterial stiffness assessment by pulse wave velocity in postmenopausal women: comparison between noninvasive devices

Accurate estimation of central arterial stiffness in postmenopausal women remains challenging with the HUAWEI GT 3 Pro smartwatch. However, results obtained using finger-to-toe pulse wave velocity from pOpm & egrave;tre device showed acceptable accuracy. ObjectiveThis study aimed to ascertain the accuracy of measure arterial stiffness using the HUAWEI GT 3 Pro smartwatch and pOpm & egrave;tre device against the SphygmoCor (algorithms: intersect tangent and maximum of the second derivate).MethodsTwenty-three physically active postmenopausal women (age: 58.9 +/- 3.2 years; body mass index: 26.3 +/- 4.8 kg/m2) were recruited. Carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity, finger-toe pulse wave velocity, and wrist-finger pulse wave velocity were obtained using SphygmoCor, pOpm & egrave;tre and HUAWEI GT 3 Pro devices in a randomized order. Additionally, the pulse mean carotid-femoral and finger-toe pulse transit time was registered for SphygmoCor and pOpm & egrave;tre, respectively.ResultsLower values of pulse wave velocity were recorded by HUAWEI in comparison with SphygmoCor with both algorithms, whereas no significant differences were detected between SphygmoCor and pOpm & egrave;tre results. Pulse wave velocity values from SphygmoCor were positively correlated with pOpm & egrave;tre results (r = 0.464 and r = 0.451 using intersect tangent and second derivative algorithms), whereas this was not the case with those obtained from HUAWEI. Coefficients of bias of Lin's concordance coefficients close to 1 (0.832 and 0.831 for intersect tangent and second derivative algorithm, respectively) and mean bias close to 0 from Bland-Altman analysis suggested an acceptable agreement between pulse wave velocity obtained from SphygmoCor and pOpm & egrave;tre.ConclusionsOur results suggest an acceptable concordance of pulse wave velocity values recoded by SphygmoCor and pOpm & egrave;tre, whereas this was not the case for data obtained from HUAWEI GT 3 Pro smartwatch. Therefore, the pOpm & egrave;tre may be a viable alternative for assessing arterial stiffness, but measurement via the smartwatch device cannot be recommended.