Pre-clinical validation study of optical probes for hemodynamic parameters assessment

The cardiovascular condition and its risk factors monitoring assumes special importance on the diagnosis and management of cardiovascular complications, such as arterial stiffness. A special interest around non-invasive technologies, able to perform multi-parameter assessment has been increasing in the last years, as they provide a more accurate and powerful diagnosis of the heart and arterial tree state, allowing consequently an earlier intervention. In this context, a non-invasive technology that consists of noninvasive optical probes has been developed for monitoring the arterial pressure wave and several indexes for the assessment of cardiovascular risk and arterial stiffness. This project consisted not only in the improvement of the existing optical system towards the further pretended validation, but also in its respective clinical validation. A database was designed and implemented in an integrated system together with the signal processing software. Also the improvement and development of the algorithms for parameters assessment was carried out. Finally, the pre-clinical trials were accomplished in several samples of healthy participants, aiming the validation of the probes, the evaluation of its performance, feasibility and reliability, and the establishment of local carotid Pulse Wave Velocity reference values. The obtained values in vivo trials are promising and proved the clinical feasibility and the potentiality of the optical probes in clinical environment. In advancing this project, towards the full clinical validation of this system, it is intended to carry out a large multicenter study with healthy and unhealthy participants.