P2.04 Pulse Wave Velocity and Wave Intensity in the Carotid Artery of Healthy Human: Windkessel and Windkessel-Less Analysis

Pulse wave velocity (PWV) is an acknowledged marker to arterial compliance. A time-domain approach to study wave propagation taking into account the Windkessel effects in arteries was introduced (1). The model assumes that the measured pressure (P) and velocity (U) are the sum of two components; a reservoir (P r , U r ) due to the buffering capacity of arteries and an excess (P e , U e ) due to the waves. A direct comparison of PWV and wave intensity (WI) with and without considering P r is lacking and quantifying the differences constitutes the objective of this work. We measured P and U in the carotid artery of 328 healthy human subjects (45±6 years old); a subset of the Asklepios study to examine pulse velocity and intensity with (PWV and WI) and without (PWV e and WI e ) the Windkessel effects. PWV is 45% higher than PWV e (8.4±2.4vs. 5.8±2.0 m/s, p