Measurement of structural and functional properties of the arterial tree produce important clinical indexes for the assessment of cardiovascular risk, vascular adaptation, and therapeutic efficacy. An optical system for non-contact measurement of skin surface vibrations with the distension in the carotid artery, that allows the determination the pulse wave velocity (PWV) and pulse waveform analysis (PWA), is promising nowadays.

A comparison between optical system and an invasive intra-arterial catheter were performed. The waveforms acquired by both systems show a strong correlation (mean value of 0.95805), the small differences emphasize the effect of the energy dissipation during the heart cycle that occurs due to the viscous properties of the arterial wall.

A comparative test between the optical system and a gold-standard method in PWV assessment (Complior®) was carried out. Lower values were expected for PWV in the carotid site than the PWV in a carotid-femoral measurement and the results proved that there are systematic lower values but with strong correlation (r = 0.819, p<0.001).

Trial tests were developed in a large group of healthy subjects for study the correlations between the population characteristics and their hemodynamic parameters measured by the optical system. The results confirmed an increase of PWV with age; the negative correlation between the Augmentation Index and the heart rate and lower values for the dP/dtmax.in female subjects.

The optical system proved to be able to measure the arterial pulse waveform in a reliable way and demonstrated a good consistency in the determination of clinical parameters using dedicated algorithms.