Researchers Develop Smartphone App to Measure Arterial Stiffness

The stiffness of arteries is an important indicator of cardiovascular health, but this parameter is somewhat difficult to evaluate and requires a specialist to do it. And yet regular monitoring of arterial stiffness can help to monitor a variety of diseases or help in their diagnoses. Now researchers at University of Southern California (USC) have developed an app that that uses only a smartphone’s camera to measure arterial stiffness.

Tonometry, which is a combination of blood pressure measurement and electrocardiography (ECG), is the standard method for measuring arterial stiffness. USC researchers realized that with a bit of artificial intelligence, you can combine one uncalibrated carotid waveform measurement with some facts about the individual being measured and you can get results very close to current standard of care. In a small study on people between ages 20 to 69, the app showed that it can measure the pulse wave velocity, from which arterial stiffness is calculated, with a Root-Mean-Square Error (RMSE) of 1.12 m/sec.



The researchers have now formed a company called Avicena that will be further developing and commercializing the technology. Perhaps using a version of their technique they will be able to accurately estimate a person’s blood pressure, as the pulse wave velocity is closely related to that biomarker as well.