Noninvasive fiber optic measurement of carotid to radial apparent phase velocity in hypertensive subjects

Foot-to-foot pulse wave velocity has been popularly used in the clinical assessment of the local elastic properties of arteries. The apparent phase velocity (c/sub app/) however contains considerable more information about vascular interaction. We investigated this latter noninvasively in normal and hypertensive subjects by means of a pair of matched fiber optic sensors applied to carotid and radial arteries. Results show that c/sub app/ is higher at low than at high frequencies and with larger amplitudes and oscillations in hypertensives.