Diagnosis of Macrovascular Complications in Diabetes Mellitus Using Arterial Stiffness Measured by the Cardio-Ankle Vascular Index

Abstract

Arterial anti-aging treatment is important, but there had not been a good marker of arterial aging. One candidate of the markers was arterial stiffness. But, it has been difficult to measure proper arterial stiffness in vivo, noninvasively. Pulse wave velocity (PWV) which was reflecting arterial stiffness, was used for last 30 years, but was inherently changed at the blood pressure at measuring time. The cardio-ankle vascular index (CAVI) was recently developed marker reflecting arterial stiffness of the arterial tree from the origin of the aorta to the ankle. The conspicuous feature of CAVI is independency from the blood pressure at measuring time. CAVI increased with aging both in males than in females. So, CAVI could be a good marker reflecting arterial aging. Furthermore, CAVI showed high value in most of those with various risks of coronary artery disease, and especially high in those with diabetes mellitus and even with prediabetes condition. Diabetes mellitus is kwon to be a strong factor for arterial aging. Recently, many studies showed that CAVI was improved by some of various diabetic treatments, indicating that CAVI might be an indicator of the treatment for diabetic angiopathy. Those also suggested that CAVI could be an indicator of various strategies especially controlling diabetes mellitus, in preventing, delaying vascular aging.