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 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 a 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 Avicenna 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.