Introduction: Peripheral arterial disease (PAD) is associated through its extensive atherosclerotic burden with both increased arterial stiffness and cardiovascular events. Recently, different non-invasive assessment devices that measure carotid-femoral or brachial pulse wave velocity (PWV) have become commercially available.

Aim: To compare PWV derived from carotid-femoral (cfPWV) or brachial (bPWV) assessments in patients with PAD.

Material and methods: Measurements of PWV with the two different non-invasive methods were performed as part of standard-of-care assessment in outpatients with PAD. Pulse wave velocities were assessed as bPWV by Mobil-O-Graph (ABPM by IEM; Stolberg, Germany), which is a brachial cuff-based method and as cfPWV by Vicorder (SMT Medical, Würzburg, Germany) an oscillometric technique for carotid and femoral pulse wave assessment. Differences between the two methods were compared by Mann Whitney U test and Bland Altman plot. Spearman rank correlation was performed to test for age dependency.

Results: In 67 Patients (35.8% female, mean age 69, range 39–91 years) bPWV (mean 10.5 ± 2.4 m/s) was significantly higher than cfPWV (mean 9.2 ± 2.1 m/s; p= 0.0013). Brachial PWV was related to age (r=0.935, p=<0.0001) whereas cfPWV did not (r=0.311, p=0.116). Bland Altman plot for bPWV and cfPWV resulted in a mean difference of −10.4 (+2 SD (4.31), −2 SD (−6.38)).

Conclusion: In patients with peripheral arterial disease, the gold standard assessment (cfPWV) differs from brachial PWV and lacks correlation with age. Aorto-femoral atherosclerotic burden may in part explain this finding since these arterial segments impact the difference in transit time in the femoral segment.