Our objective was to study the interrelationships between longitudinal movement of the wall of the common carotid artery and the conventional measures of arteriosclerosis in a large and well-characterized study population. Successful longitudinal movement analyses were performed on 292 subjects. The peak-to-peak and retrograde amplitudes of the longitudinal movement were directly correlated with carotid artery distensibility (r = 0·21, P<0·001 and r = 0·23, P<0·001, respectively) and inversely correlated with pulse wave velocity (r = -0·14, P<0·05 and r = -0·17, P<0·01, respectively). All longitudinal motion parameters were independent of brachial flow-mediated dilatation and intima-media thickness. Our findings indicate that arterial stiffening modulates longitudinal movement and, therefore, measurement of longitudinal movement can be of value in the assessment of vascular health.
Keywords: arterial stiffness; carotid artery distensibility; flow-mediated dilatation; intima-media thickness; motion tracking; pulse wave velocity; ultrasound imaging.
© 2015 Scandinavian Society of Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.