Cardio-ankle vascular index (CAVI) is a potential new parameter independent of blood pressure at the time of measurement for arterial stiffness estimation

Abstract

The cardio-ankle vascular index (CAVI) is a robust predictor of cardiovascular events. An innovative, non-invasive approach to measuring arterial stiffness. The (CAVI) approach was developed to overcome the limitations of carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity (cf-PWV), the gold standard indicator of arterial stiffness. The present study aims to propose a new algorithm to calculate the cardio-ankle vascular index (CAVI) parameter from Pulse Wave Database (PWDB), that contains the pulse waves of 500 virtual subjects aged between 25 and 75 years, generated from cardiovascular characteristics. The results obtained are promising in terms of sensitivity (SEN) and accuracy (ACC). The sensitivity values are (95.18 %, 95.71%, 92.70 %, 90.33%, 89.28%, and 89.05%), and accuracy (ACC) are (91%, 89.4%, 86.4 %, 80.4%, 80 %, and 81.4%) for normal values of (CAVI, cf-PWV, a-PWV, PPamp, AIx, and ABI) respectively. We confirmed the value of (CAVI) as an indicator of cardiovascular disease by investing the relationship between (CAVI) and several parameters of arterial stiffness including carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity (cf-PWV, r=0.66), arterial stiffness index (AIx, r=0.72), and aortic pulse wave velocity (a-PWV, r=0,96). Pulse pressure amplification showed a negative correlation (PPamp, r=-0.67). A moderate negative correlation was observed with ankle brachial index (ABI, r=-0.38). A weak dependence on different blood pressures at the time of measurement was confirmed, by the coefficients of determination r² (systolic SBP, 0.08, diastolic DBP, 0.11, mean MBP, 0.10, and pulsed pressures PP, 0.16). The influence of age on arterial stiffness was found with a strong positive correlation between age and cardio-ankle vascular index (CAVI, r=0.88).