Inflammation does not influence arterial stiffness and pulse-wave velocity in patients with coronary artery disease.

Vascular function is an important pathophysiological factor in cardiovascular disease, and is influenced by many factors, one of the principles being hypertension. Developing evidence suggests that inflammation may be another risk factor. Vascular function and blood pressure haemodynamics can be assessed by arterial stiffness, pulse pressure and plasma markers. Testing the hypothesis of a relationship between inflammatory markers, hypertension and vascular function, we recruited 222 stable coronary artery disease outpatients, assessing inflammation with levels of high sensitivity CRP and interleukin-6 (IL-6), vascular function/arterial stiffness by pulse-wave velocity (PWV), augmentation (SphygmoCor system Artcor, Sidney, Australia), aortic and brachial artery pulse pressure, Von Willebrand factor (vWf) and soluble E-selectin (both enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay). In multivariate regression analysis, PWVs, augmentation indices and pulse pressures were linked with age, blood pressure and (some) with heart rate (all P<0.01), while vWf was associated with age (P=0.01). We conclude that, in patients with stable coronary artery disease, arterial stiffness and pulse pressure are related strongly and independently with age, blood pressure and heart rate, and that any effect of inflammation is minimal.