[Effect of age on brachial and carotid circulation in human arterial hypertension].

Right brachial artery and common carotid artery haemodynamic parameters were studied using pulsed Doppler velocimetry enabling non invasive measurements of their internal diameters and blood velocities in 74 untreated essential hypertensive patients subdivided in two groups of younger than (33 patients) and older than 45 years (41 patients). There were no significant differences in the haemodynamic parameters of brachial artery (i.e. diameter and blood velocity) between the two groups of patients. In the patients older than 45, there were no changes in the diameter of common carotid artery, but there was a decrease in carotid artery blood velocity as compared with patients younger than 45 (p less than 0.001). In the patients younger than 45, there were no correlations between the haemodynamic parameters of both circulations; in contrast, in patient older than 45 significant relationship were found between the common carotid artery diameter and the brachial artery diameter (r = 0.45, p less than 0.01) and between the blood velocity in the common carotid artery and in the brachial artery (r = 0.55, p less than 0.001). Thus, in these hypertensive patients, brachial artery circulation was not affected by age; but age older than 45 was associated with a decrease in common carotid blood flow, with no change in common carotid artery diameter. However, the existence of strong correlations between brachial and carotid artery diameters and blood velocities in patients older than 45, suggests that age might interfere, in hypertensive patients, with the specific regulatory adjustments of the brachial and carotid circulations.