Investigation of arterial stiffness in thoracic and abdominal aortic aneurysms

Aim: To research arterial stiffness increase in patients with thoracal and abdominal aortic aneurysms and to investigate the etiopathogenic relationship between aortic aneurysms and arterial stiffness.Method: Study population included 20 patients with thoracal aortic aneurysm (13 male, 7 female, mean aged 65 ± 7 years), 18 patients with abdominal aortic aneurysms (11 male, 7 female, mean aged 69 ± 4 years), and 20 patiens who had no aortic aneurysm (13 male, 7 female, mean aged 66 ± 6 years). Arterial stiffness measurement was performed in all patients by non-invasive SphygmoCor device. Carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity (PWV), augmentation pressure (AP), and augmentation index normalized for heart rate of 75 bpm (AIx@75) were used as arterial stiffness parameters.Findings: There was no difference among the three groups in terms of demographic characteristics, parameters of lipid status, and medications (except for using beta-blocker and ADE inh.). While AP was found to be significantly higher (p= 0,028) in abdominal aortic aneurysms group compared with thoracal aortic aneurysm group, AIx@75 was found to be significantly higher in abdominal aortic aneurysms group compared with both thoracal aortic aneurysm group and control group (p=0.019 and p=0.008 respectively). Carotid-femoral PWV was found to be significantly higher (p= 0.002) in abdominal aortic aneurysm group compared with control group.Conclusion: While arterial stiffness increased in patient with abdominal aortic aneurysms, it did not increase in patients with thoracal aortic aneurysm. This condition suggests that abdominal aortic aneurysms is a systemic pathology rather than a local disease and its etiology consists of a systemic cause such as atherosklerozis.Keywords : arterial stiffness, aortic aneurysms, pulse wave velocity