Department of Immunorheumatology, Università "Campus Bio-Medico", Roma, Italy.
Department of Rheumatology, Polytechnic University of the Marche, Jesi - Ancona, Italy.
J Investig Med. 2018 Aug;66(6):973-979. doi: 10.1136/jim-2017-000430. Epub 2017 Sep 2.
To validate the clinical applicability and feasibility of an automated ultrasound (US) method in measuring the arterial stiffness of patients with chronic inflammatory rheumatic diseases, comparing automated measurements performed by a rheumatologist without experience in vascular sonography with those obtained by a sonographer experienced in vascular US, using a standardized manual method. Twenty subjects affected by different chronic inflammatory rheumatic disorders were consecutively recruited. For each patient, the arterial stiffness of both common carotids was manually calculated. Subsequently, the measure of the pulse wave velocity (PWV) was obtained using an US device called Radio Frequency - Quality Arterial Stiffness (RF-QAS), provided by the same US system (ie, My Lab 70 XVG, Esaote SpA, Genoa, Italy) equipped with a 4-13 MHz linear probe. The reliability comparison between the two US methods was calculated using the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC). ICC between the values obtained with the two methods for calculating the arterial stiffness resulted 0.789. A significant positive correlation between the two methods was also established with Pearson's (r=0.62, p<0.0001) and Spearman's analysis (r=0.66, p=0.001). A significant performance comparison was seen using Bland-Altman plot. The acquisition of the arterial stiffness parameter with the automated method required about 2 min for each patient. Clinical applicability of this US automated method to assess PWV at common carotid level by a rheumatologist is reliable and feasible in comparison with a conventional manual method.
为了验证一种自动化超声（US）方法在测量慢性炎症性风湿性疾病患者动脉僵硬度方面的临床适用性和可行性，我们比较了一位没有血管超声经验的风湿病学家和一位有血管 US 经验的超声医师使用标准化手动方法进行的自动测量。连续招募了 20 名患有不同慢性炎症性风湿性疾病的患者。对于每个患者，手动计算双侧颈总动脉的动脉僵硬度。随后，使用一种名为 Radio Frequency - Quality Arterial Stiffness（RF-QAS）的 US 设备（由 My Lab 70 XVG 超声系统提供，Esaote SpA，Genoa，意大利）获取脉搏波速度（PWV）的测量值，该系统配备了一个 4-13MHz 的线性探头。采用组内相关系数（ICC）比较两种 US 方法的可靠性。两种方法计算动脉僵硬度的结果之间的 ICC 为 0.789。Pearson（r=0.62，p<0.0001）和 Spearman 分析（r=0.66，p=0.001）也建立了两种方法之间的显著正相关。Bland-Altman 图显示了显著的性能比较。使用自动化方法获取动脉僵硬度参数，每位患者大约需要 2 分钟。与传统的手动方法相比，这种 US 自动化方法由风湿病学家评估颈总动脉水平 PWV 的临床适用性可靠且可行。
