Repeatability Study of Local Vascular Stiffness Measurement Using Carotid Surface Acceleration Plethysmogram.

Abstract

We have developed an accelerometric system with a custom-designed patch probe and signal acquisition hardware to acquire the carotid wall displacement from the soft tissue surface for arterial stiffness evaluation. A subject-specific calibration model was developed to estimate the morphology of accurate carotid diameter waveform, using a standard ultrasound B-mode imaging system as the reference. Following the one-time calibration, the accelerometric system continuously acquired a non-invasive carotid lumen diameter waveform. The capability of the accelerometric system to measure the carotid stiffness index (β) in-vivo was experimentally validated by performing measurements on 8 normotensive subjects in the supine position. The repeatability and reproducibility of the results were investigated and were found to be comparable to those provided by ultrasound imaging systems. Further, the variation of arterial stiffness index measurements on different days was studied to verify the ability of the system to give a stable measure of stiffness. The accuracy of the observed results was confirmed with the state-of-art B-mode ultrasound imaging system. The results were found to be stable over a day, indicating the utility of the system for a reliable measure of non-invasive carotid arterial stiffness.