Non-Invasive Estimation of Arterial Stiffness in Healthy and Asthmatic Children Comparison of the Methods: A Pilot Study.

Questions Asthma is an inflammatory disease that affects not only lungs but other organ system, e.g. a cardiovascular system. Arterial stiffness is a subclinical predictor of cardiovascular diseases. Its measurement is carried out by applanation tonometry (European countries) with such main parameters as pulse wave velocity (PWV) and augmentation index (AI) as well as measurement of Cardio-ankle index (CAVI) outside Europe. The aim of our study is to estimate arterial stiffness in asthmatic and healthy children using two methods of its measurement and compare them. Methods We measured asthmatic children (group A, 52 respondents) and control group (C, 71 respondents) of the same age, systolic (SBP), diastolic (DBP) blood pressure and body mass index (BMI). For each respondent we measured SPB, DPB, PWV, AI and AI standardized on pulse height and heart rate (AIx75) on the dominant side with Sphygmocor device (AtCor Medical, Australia). All measurements were calibrated by oscillometric blood pressure measurement on the brachial artery (Omron, HEM-907-E, Japan) on the same side. The CAVI was measured with VaSera device (Fukuda Denshi, Japan). The Statistic 13 software was used for statistical analysis. Result There were significant differences in AIx75 (3.0±10.9 vs. -2.0±10.6; p<0.05), PWV (6.6±1.1 vs. 7.2±1.4; p<0.05), CAVI (4.5±0.9 vs. 4.9±0.6; p<0.05) between A and C, and significant correlation between PWV and CAVI (p<0.05). Conclusion We can conclude that asthma bronchiale and its treatment changed the properties of vessels in children comparing to the healthy group. Our study shows that both methods reflect the changes in arterial stiffness.