Arterial Stiffness and its Correlation with the Extent of Coronary Artery Disease

Introduction: Coronary artery disease secondary to atherosclerosis is the most common cause of mortality. Coronary angiography is the most precise method for determining the extent of disease in the coronary vascular bed. Arterial stiffness has been proposed as a marker of atherosclerosis in some studies. One of the noninvasive methods for the determination of arterial stiffness is Doppler echocardiography. In this study, we aimed to find the correlation between arterial stiffness as measured by echocardiography and the extent of coronary artery disease as evaluated through angiography. Materials and Methods: Aortic pulse wave velocity (APWV) was measured by using the Doppler method in 70 patients, who were candidates for coronary angiography. The extent of coronary artery disease was determined quantitatively in terms of Friesinger index and semi-quantitatively as the number of vessels with stenosis of over 50%. Then, the correlation between arterial stiffness and these factors was evaluated. Results: The mean APWV was 9.1±5 m/s. There was a direct relationship between APWV and Friesinger index, which was not statistically significant (P=0.67). The mean APWV for patients with one-vessel disease was 4.4±1.8 m/s, while it was 9.9±3.6 m/s in patients with two and 7.9±4 m/s in three-vessel disease which did not show statistically significant difference. Conclusion: Doppler echocardiography to measure APWV was not considered as a promising tool to predict the extent of coronary artery disease.