BACKGROUND The ulnar artery is a terminal branch of the brachial artery. The aim of this study is to provide comprehensive data concerning the morphology of the ulnar artery, with clinical implications for surgeons. METHODS The current study includes the dissection of 68 upper limb specimens. It investigates the characteristics of the ulnar artery such as the internal diameter, external diame...

The radial artery usually arises from brachial artery and begins just below the inferior border of teres major. The present study focuses on the radial artery features which are the internal diameter and external diameter as well as thickness of wall and origin level of radial artery to give extensive data for physicians. Present study comprises a dissection of 68 upper limbs which is 34 cadave...

OBJECTIVE To examine the impact of age, sex and exercise on wall thickness and remodelling in the popliteal and brachial arteries. METHODS We compared wall thickness, lumen diameter and wall:lumen ratios in the brachial and popliteal arteries of 15 young (Y, 25.4+/-0.8 yr; 7M 8W) and 16 older sedentary (OS, 58.8+/-1.1 yr; 8M 8W) subjects, with 12 of the OS group also studied following 12 and ...

OBJECTIVES Brachial artery flow-mediated dilation (FMD) is associated with risk factors providing information on cardiovascular prognosis. Despite the large effort to standardize the methodology, the FMD examination is still characterized by problems of reproducibility and reliability that can be partially overcome with the use of automatic systems. We developed real-time software for the asses...

Whether brachial artery FMD (flow-mediated dilation) is altered in pregnancy by 28-35 weeks compared with non-pregnant women remains controversial. The controversy may be due to limitations of previous studies that include failing to: (i) test non-pregnant controls in the mid-late luteal phase, (ii) account for effects of pregnancy on the dilatory shear stimulus, (iii) account for physical acti...

Non-invasive ultrasound techniques to assess flow-mediated vasodilation (FMD) are frequently used to assess arterial endothelial vasodilator function. However, the range of normal values varies considerably, possibly due to differences in methodological factors. We sought to determine the effect of occlusion cuff position on the time course and magnitude of brachial artery blood flow and flow-m...

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Polycythemia, a common complication of hypoxic COPD, may affect systemic vascular function by altering blood viscosity, vessel wall shear stress (WSS), and endothelium-derived nitric oxide (NO) release. Here, we evaluated the effects of hypoxia-related polycythemia on systemic endothelial function in...

OBJECTIVE Under physiological conditions, arteries remodel in response to changes in blood flow to maintain local shear stress. Risk factors and developing atherosclerosis may be associated with maladaptive remodeling that produces relatively large arteries with low levels of shear stress. Recent studies have shown that the brachial artery and other peripheral arteries are enlarged in patients ...

While the impact of changes in blood flow and shear stress on artery function are well documented, the acute effects of increases in arterial pressure are less well described in humans. The aim of this study was to assess the effect of 30 min of elevated blood pressure, in the absence of changes in shear stress or sympathetic nervous system (SNS) activation, on conduit artery diameter. Ten heal...