Pulse wave velocity (PWV) is a useful method to assess arterial stiffness and predict mortality of atherosclerosis-related diseases. The progression of atherosclerosis is not homogeneous. There must be difference of PWV between sites by site. Therefore we designed a multi-channel instrument to measure PWV at different sites of the body simultaneously. We measured PWV at six different regions simultaneously. Thirty four healthy adults received the measurement. We found that PWVs were higher in the large vessels, by measuring from the heart to toes and heart to fingers as compared with the measurement from the heart to the earlobes (4.76 ± 0.46 m/s; 4.67 ± 0.41 m/s; 1.10 ± 0.16 m/s). The PWV of the left and right sides were the same. Although there were statistically significances, the correlation of PWV between foot and hand is better than those between ear and foot and between ear and hand. Herein we presented a novel and reliable measurement of PWV. The changes of PWV in different regions may be used in predicting disease processes such as stroke, coronary artery diseases and renal diseases, respectively.

Six-channel ECG-PWV measurement system showed remarkable correlation with IMT in hypertensive subjects and with key anthropometric and biochemical parameters in diabetic patients, suggesting its validity in assessing whole-body arterial stiffness in subjects with peripheral arterial diseases within 10 min.

In an intact ring preparation of rabbit PV sleeves, intrinsic spontaneous pacemaking activity or triggered activity was not found.

For two non-invasive measurements, Pulse Wave Velocity by Digital Volume Pulse and Pulse Wave Velocity by Digital Volume Pulse Easy, only a few minutes are needed for self arterial stiffness assessment. But since they have some limitations for those who are not healthy, ECG is used in this study are the common reference point for performance enhancement. Fifteen subjects without cardiovascular disease are included for PWV measurements on six positions on the body. The PWV value on the ear is the smallest, and the toe is the largest. In addition, the PWV values on the six regions have no consistency to each other, so subjects may have smaller PWV in a region than others, which means this region is ok for arterial stiffness, but we still need to know PWV values of other parts. For both sides and on all regions, all subjects' average PWV has a high correlation.