Arterial Stiffness in Portuguese Patients with Axial Spondyloarthritis: a pilot study

Cardiovascular (CV) diseases are the leading cause of mortality, and arterial stiffness is a well-known determinant CV risk factor, which can be evaluated by the measurements of carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity (cfPWV), recently proposed as a gold-standard marker of CV risk. Previous studies have confirmed arterial stiffness’s increase with ageing, as well as in individuals with Axial Spondyloarthritis (axSpA). Since cfPWV’s profile varies with ethnicity, there’s a need for its establishment in specific populations.The present pilot work intends to characterize arterial stiffness profile through cfPWV’s values in two small cohorts of Portuguese from Lisbon area: 11 adults with no associated diagnosis (NAD) (31-51 years of age) and 10 adults with diagnosed axSpA (31-50 years of age), as well as to estimate if axSpA compromises CV health. cfPWV was attained with a non-invasive, portable and low-cost device.The cohort of adults with NAD presented a mean value of cfPWV 5.79±2.22 m/s, and the adults with axSpA, a mean value of 6.33±2.11 m/s. The performed hypothesis tests with 9 patients and 8 controls did not allow to infer that the adults with axSpA (6.57 m/s) held a higher CV risk than the control group (5.92 m/s): p-value=0.50.Further investigations would be desirable in order to obtain larger samples and promote a large-scale trial.