Original Article Relationship between Radial and Central Arterial Pulse Wave and Evaluation of Central Aortic Pressure Using the Radial Arterial Pulse Wave

Since a decrease of central aortic pressure contributes to the prevention of cardiovascular events, simple measurement of not only brachial blood pressure but also central aortic pressure may be useful in the pre-vention and treatment of cardiovascular diseases. In this study, we simultaneously measured radial artery pulse waves non-invasively and ascending aortic pressure invasively, before and after the adminis-tration of nicorandil. We then compared changes in central aortic pressure and radial arterial blood pressure calibrated with brachial blood pressure in addition to calculating the augmentation index (AI) at the aorta and radial artery. After nicorandil administration, the reduction in maximal systolic blood pressure in the aorta (? a-SBP) was –14 ± 15 mmHg, significantly larger than that in early systolic pressure in the radial artery (? r-SBP) (–9 ± 12 mmHg). The reduction in late systolic blood pressure in the radial artery (? r-SBP2) was –15 ± 14 mmHg, significantly larger than? r-SBP, but not significantly different from? a-SBP. There were significant relationships between? a-SBP and? r-SBP ( r = 0.81, p < 0.001), and between? a-SBP and? r-SBP2 ( r = 0.91, p < 0.001). The slope of the correlation regression line with? r-SBP2 (0.83) was larger and closer to 1 than that with? r-SBP (0.63), showing that the relationship was close to 1:1. Significant cor-relations were obtained between aortic AI (a-AI) and radial AI (r-AI) (before nicorandil administration: