Radial artery compliance and distensibility in hypertension and hypertension-related conditions.

Arterial compliance and distensibility, measured by non-invasive and specific techniques, give us information on the cardiovascular alterations occurring in pathophysiological conditions. Recently, it has been observed that familial hypertension is characterized by a slight but significant increase of 24-hour blood pressure and, despite this, by normal arterial function. On the contrary, long-term hypertension is associated with arteria distensibility changes, that is a slight increase of peripheral muscle artery distensibility in the systo-diastolic hypertension and a marked reduction in the isolated systolic hypertension. This probably comes from the different arterial wall content changes in these two hypertensive conditions. Also familial hypercholesterolemia and non-familial hypercholesterolemia cause a reduction in arterial distensibility. Hypercholesterolemia has also an unfavorable effect because its association with high blood pressure values induces stronger alterations in arterial elastic properties than hypertension alone.