Background: Arterial stiffness has previously been shown to be a key indicator for the risk on developing cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) like a myocardial infarction or a stroke. Being able to measure and evaluate arterial stiffness has thus become increasingly important and could lead to promising techniques in early detection of CVDs and identification of high-risk patients.
Goal: An existing relation between arterial stiffness and biological age has been established before. However, most studies used cross-sectional cohort data to show this link with age, which is, in essence, a longitudinal parameter. Therefore, in this thesis, the effect of ageing was studied by comparing the data of two consecutive follow-up rounds within the Asklepios Study.
Method: The carotid distension in round 2 was determined for 515 participants using ultrasound measurements. Of these, 487 participants could be evaluated, using data from both rounds, to calculate the stiffness-related parameters such as the carotid IMT, cPWV, cfPWV, compliance and distensibility. The data was assessed using inter- (longitudinal) and intra-round (cross-sectional) evaluations and was split by age to compare the data of both rounds for a given age range.
Results: The evolution in longitudinal (round 2) IMT data was shown to be higher than expected, based on cross-sectional (round 1) data (p < 0.001). For cfPWV, the evolution was found to be better than expected, showing no significant increase in cfPWV for higher aged participants, when comparing both rounds (p = 0.37 and p = 0.27). This was contrasted by the cPWV, where generally, a significant increase was found in round 2 data for similarly aged participants. The PDD showed no significant increase in mean distensibility, but showed significant discrepancies in the overall course of the distensibility.
Conclusion: These results show that age-based relations and reference values to assess arterial stiffness do have their merit and should be included when possible. However, when using cross-sectional data, certain caution to the influence of other age-dependent parameters like blood pressure, life-style and health awareness is advised.
