P8.6 Pulsatile Component of Central Blood Pressure and the Risk of Stroke in Coronary Patients. Results From the Aortic Blood Pressure and Survival Study

Objectives Vascular aging and metabolic syndrome (MS) are both independent predictors of cardiovascular events. We examined whether MS accelerates the progression of vascular aging. Methods 142 subjects (mean age 51.9±10.8 years, 94 men) with no established cardiovascular disease were investigated in 2 examinations over a 2-year period (mean follow-up visit 1.84 years). MS was defined by the ATP III criteria. Subjects had at the beginning and end of the study determinations of carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity (PWV), aortic augmentation index corrected for heart rate (AIx75), brachial flow-mediated dilatation (FMD) and carotid intima-media thickness (cIMT). Based on these measurements the annual absolute changes were calculated. Results At baseline patients with MS compared with patients without MSs had lower values of FMD (6.0% vs. 7.0%, P = 0.025), but there were no statistically significant differences for PWV (7.04m/s vs. 7.26m/s, P = 0.242), AIx@75 (19.9% vs. 20.3%, P = 0.846) and cIMT (0.68mm vs. 0.68mm, P = 0.957). For the overall population, there were no statistically significant differences in the annual absolute changes of PWV, FMD, AIx75 and cIMT. However, when a subgroup of patients