Impact of volunteer-related and methodology-related factors on the reproducibility of brachial artery flow-mediated vasodilation: analysis of 672 individual repeated measurements

OBJECTIVES:Brachial artery flow-mediated dilation (FMD) is a popular technique to examine endothelial function in humans. Identifying volunteer and methodological factors related to variation in FMD is important to improve measurement accuracy and applicability. METHODS:Volunteer-related and methodology-related parameters were collected in 672 volunteers from eight affiliated centres worldwide who underwent repeated measures of FMD. All centres adopted contemporary expert-consensus guidelines for FMD assessment. After calculating the coefficient of variation (%) of the FMD for each individual, we constructed quartiles (n = 168 per quartile). Based on two regression models (volunteer-related factors and methodology-related factors), statistically significant components of these two models were added to a final regression model (calculated as β-coefficient and R). This allowed us to identify factors that independently contributed to the variation in FMD%. RESULTS:Median coefficient of variation was 17.5%, with healthy volunteers demonstrating a coefficient of variation 9.3%. Regression models revealed age (β = 0.248, P