Usefulness of estimated pulse wave velocity for identifying prevalent coronary heart disease: findings from a general Chinese population

Background Aortic stiffness and coronary heart disease (CHD) share a similar spectrum of risk factors; previous studies have identified the association between aortic stiffness and CHD. Recent studies have demonstrated estimated pulse wave velocity (ePWV) as a simple and easy-acquired indicator of aortic stiffness. Our work aims to evaluate the association between ePWV and the prevalence of CHD and assess the value of ePWV for the identification of prevalent CHD. Methods The current cross-sectional work included 7012 subjects from rural areas of southeastern China between September 2020 and February 2021. ePWV was calculated from age and mean blood pressure by specific algorithm. Results The prevalence of CHD in our population was 3.58% (251 patients among 7012 subjects). After adjusting for age, sex, education, income and exercise level, current smoking and drinking status, body mass index, waist circumference, fasting plasma glucose, total cholesterol, high density lipoprotein, estimated glomerular filtration rate and cerebrovascular diseases, each standard deviation increment of ePWV would produce an additional 37.8% risk of prevalent CHD. Moreover, after dividing ePWV into quartiles, the 4th quartile of ePWV showed a significant risk of prevalent CHD (OR (95% CI): 3.567 (1.963-6.479)) when compared with the 1(st) quartile. Additionally, the subgroup analysis showed the association between ePWV and prevalent CHD was robust to several common risk factors of CHD, including age, sex, body mass index, hypertension, diabetes and reduced estimated glomerular filtration rate. Finally, the area under curve (AUC) displayed an improvement when adding ePWV into common CHD risk factors (0.705 vs. 0.718. P = 0.044). Consistently, net reclassification index (0.436, 95% CI: 0.301-0.571, P < 0.001) and integrated discrimination index (0.004, 95% CI: 0.001-0.006, P = 0.002) demonstrated the value of ePWV to optimize the identification of prevalent CHD in the general population. Conclusion The present analysis implicates the robust association between ePWV, a simple, rapid, and practical marker of aortic stiffness, and prevalent CHD in the general Chinese population. More importantly, the results suggest the value of ePWV as a potential marker to improve the identification of prevalent CHD.