Association between Carotid Wall Shear Rate and Arterial Stiffness in Patients with Hypertension and Atherosclerosis of Peripheral Arteries

Abstract

Aim To evaluate carotid wall shear rate (WSR) in association with local and regional vascular stiffness in patients with hypertension (HTN) and atherosclerosis of peripheral arteries and to study the pattern of change of WSR in patients with HTN with increasing severity of peripheral artery atherosclerosis. Materials and Methods Study involved 133 patients with HTN, 65 men and 48 women, aged in average 57.9±10.8 years. All patients were divided into four groups in accordance with ultrasound morphologic classification of vessel wall. Duplex scanning of carotid and lower limb arteries was performed. Carotid-femoral (cfPWV) and carotid-radial (crPWV) pulse wave velocity (PWV) were measured. Local carotid stiffness was evaluated by carotid ultrasound. Results WSR of patients with plaques without and with hemodynamic disturbance was 416±128 s−1 and 405±117 s−1, respectively, which was significantly less than the WSR in patients with intact peripheral arteries – 546±112 s−1. Decreased carotid WSR was associated with increased crPVW, cfPWV, Peterson's elastic modulus, decreased distensibility, and distensibility coefficient. Conclusion In patients with HTN and atherosclerotic lesions of peripheral arteries, it is registered that the carotid WSR decreased with increasing severity of atherosclerosis. Decreased carotid WSR is associated with increased local carotid stiffness, regional vascular stiffness of muscular, and elastic vessels.

Biomechanical Forces and Atherosclerosis: From Mechanism to Diagnosis and Treatment

“…It has been found in our study that as the severity of atherosclerotic lesions of peripheral arteries increases, a significant decrease in carotid WSR was observed (Fig. 2 ) [ 69 ].…”

Atherosclerosis research: the impact of physiological parameters on vascular wall stress

“…The formation of atherosclerosis is very complicated and associated with many factors, such as age, gender, diet and certain diseases [28,29]. There are studies showing that people with hypertension and hyperlipidemia are more likely to develop atherosclerosis [30,31]; however, the mechanism by which these physiological conditions are linked to atherosclerosis is still unclear. In this work, by investigating the influence of physiological parameters on VWS, we were able to establish a connection between these parameters and hemodynamic Our data show that even though blood pressure can directly affect the pressure on the vessel wall, alone it had no influence on WSS.…”

Confocal Blood Flow Videomicroscopy of Thrombus Formation over Human Arteries and Local Targeting of P2X7

“…Blood flow experiments were performed with human blood collected in citrate phosphate dextrose solution (CPD, 11 mM citrate final concentration) and re-calcified with 10 mM CaCl 2 immediately before perfusion over the artery section. A custom-built rectangular parallel plate flow chamber, realized in order to have a constant/homogenous shear rate in the whole chamber and hosting 25 × 50 mm coverslips was used in real-time confocal videomicroscopy (LSM450 confocal microscope, Carl Zeiss Inc., Oberkochen, Germany) to visualize deposition of platelet aggregates and fibrin strands over blood-perfused cryosections (7 min, wall shear rate of 500 s –1 [ 52 ]). Platelets were labelled by 10 mM mepacrine and fibrin by mouse anti-human fibrin AlexaFluor546-conjugated (clone mh1, 0.02 mg/mL, from ATCC hybridoma, which binds specifically to the β chain of fibrin and has no cross-reactivity with the β chain of fibrinogen) added to blood.…”

“…The impossibility to obtain blood samples harvested from different donors at the same time hampered the realization of normalized experiments with fresh blood pools. A wall shear rate of 500 s –1 [ 52 ] was tested as proof of concept; the evaluation of the shear variable over tissue layers could be the subject of a future comparative study applying different shear rates with the same/different blood.…”