Experimental evidence of the compressibility of arteries.

A definitive answer to the question whether artery walls are incompressible is to our opinion not yet categorically provided. Experimental-based evidence on the level of compressibility in artery walls is not easily achieved because of the difficulties associated with the measurement of very small differences in volumes under physiological pressure in these biological tissues. Past experiments aimed at addressing the question considered different species, different arteries, the experimental devices were not accurate enough and a statistical analysis of the results was missing. A precise experimental device together with a thorough testing protocol, a careful selection of arteries and a statistical analysis is presented for a definitive evaluation of the artery wall compressibility. We provide experimental evidence that in saphenous and femoral porcine arteries under physiological pressure range a relative compressibility of 2-6% is observed. The pre-assumption of incompressibility in many phenomenological constitutive models of artery walls should probably be re-evaluated.