Objective: To examine if AASI is correlated to arterial stiffness in patients with RH and type-II-diabetes mellitus.

Methods: We included 87 patients. RH was defined according to guidelines from the American Heart Association.

Echocardiography was performed using GE Vivid 7and pulse wave analysis using Sphygmocor. All examinations were performed under standardized conditions. All analyses were done blinded offline using Echopac and customized software.

Ambulatory blood pressure (BP) measurement was done using Kivex TM 2430 and Spacelab 90217. All parameters were adjusted for sex, age, length of disease and heart rate using multiple linear regression. Spearman’s rank correlation was used to estimate correlation between groups.

Results: 34 patients had RH and 24 had controlled hypertension (CH) leaving 29 with uncontrolled hypertension. See table 1 for patient characteristics. Patients were comparable with regards to age and body mass index. AASI did not differ significantly between groups. Pulse pressure, mean arterial pressure and length of disease varied significantly between groups. AASI and PWV was not correlated (Spearman’s rho = 0.08, P = 0.57).Neither was AASI and characteristic impedance (Spearman’s rho = 0.1, P=0.44) However when comparing AASI and E_A/E_MAX we found positive correlation (Spearman’s rho 0.36, P=0.006) and when comparing AASI and ejection fraction (Spearman’s rho = −0.29, P = 0.02) negative correlation.

Conclusion: AASI is not correlated to PWV or characteristic impedance, which are measures of arterial stiffness, but to E_A/E_MAX and ejection fraction, which might suggest that AASI does not reflect arterial stiffness, but ventriculo-vascular coupling.