Monitoring aortic stiffness in the presence of measurement artifact based on an arterial tube model.

Pulse wave velocity (PWV) determined through the foot-to-foot time delay between carotid and femoral artery waveforms is an index of aortic stiffness with proven clinical value. However, handheld transducers, which are often used to non-invasively measure the waveforms, are prone to motion artifact that may limit the full potential of this index. Here, we conceived an artifact robust technique to estimate PWV based on an arterial tube model. We applied the technique to high fidelity canine arterial pressure waveforms before and after contamination with known amounts of noise. Our results showed that, as the signal-to-noise ratio decreased, the PWV estimates of the technique predicted diastolic and mean arterial pressure with increasingly greater accuracy than the PWV estimates of the conventional foot-to-foot detection technique.