Possible determinants of pulse-wave velocity in vivo

The relationship between arterial pulse-wave velocity and the possible factors (age, gender, blood pressure, heart rate, serum lipids, and disease state) involved were examined for 127 subjects using multivariate analysis. Since a preliminary study had shown that age correlated highly with transmission time of pulse waves rather than with their velocity, the former was used in this analysis. Transmission time was obtained from the transit time between fingertip-pulse and toetip-pulse waves, as estimated from the delay of the initial rise of pulse waves and from the delay of each of the six frequency components less than 7 Hz obtained with Fourier analysis. Multiple regression analysis indicated that the possible determinants of the transmission time were age, gender, systolic and diastolic blood pressures, and phospholipid.