Aortic pulse wave velocity: an independent marker of cardiovascular risk.

Aortic pulse wave velocity, a classic index of aortic stiffness, may be easily measured in humans using noninvasive ultrasound methods of high reproducibility. Recent epidemiologic studies have shown that, independently of confounding factors such as age, blood pressure and cardiac mass, aortic pulse wave velocity is a predictor of cardiovascular mortality in populations of hypertensive subjects, whether they have end-stage renal disease or not. Since aortic pulse wave velocity is dominantly influenced by age, this finding may be of major importance for the evaluation of cardiovascular risk in geriatric populations. Copyright 2002 CVRR, Inc.