Carotid stiffness change over the cardiac cycle by ultrafast ultrasound imaging in healthy volunteers and vascular Ehlers–Danlos syndrome

OBJECTIVES:Arterial stiffness is related to age and collagen properties of the arterial wall and can be indirectly evaluated by the pulse wave velocity (PWV). Ultrafast ultrasound imaging, a unique ultrahigh frame rate technique (>10 000 images/s), recently emerged enabling direct measurement of carotid PWV and its variation over the cardiac cycle. Our goal was to characterize the carotid diastolic–systolic arterial stiffening using ultrafast ultrasound imaging in healthy individuals and in vascular Ehlers–Danlos syndrome (vEDS), in which collagen type III is defectuous. METHODS:Ultrafast ultrasound imaging was performed on common carotids of 102 healthy individuals and 37 consecutive patients with vEDS. Results are mean ± standard deviation. RESULTS:Carotid ultrafast ultrasound imaging PWV in healthy individuals was 5.6 ± 1.2 in early systole and 7.3 ± 2.0 m/s in end systole, and correlated with age (r = 0.48; P