Assessment of Brachial Artery Endothelial Function in Essential Hypertension with Color Doppler Ultrasound

Objective To investigate the clinical application of color Doppler ultrasound(CDU) in evaluating the brachial artery endothelial function in essential hypertension(EH).Methods A total of 50 cases with EH were divided into two groups,group I with low or middle risk and group II with high or very high risk.Thirty cases with normal blood pressure were served as the control(group III).EH patients in group Ⅰ and Ⅱ were administered with Carvedilol for 12 weeks.Before and after treatment with Carvedilol,the changes of brachial arteial inner diameter and the blood flow under the basal state,reactive hyperaemia stage and after taking nitroglycerin were evaluated with CDU,respectively.Results(1) Under the reactive hyperaemia stage,the changes of the inner diameter and blood flow in EH were significantly different from those in the control group.(2) After the treatment with Carvedilol,under reactive hyperaemia situation in EH,the inner diameter and the blood flow were significant improved.Conclusions CDU is a simple and effective method to evaluate the brachial arterial endothelial function and the drug effect as well.