TONOMETRY OF THE FEMORAL ARTERY IN HEALTHY DOGS AND IN THOSE WITH CHRONIC DEGENERATIVE MITRAL VALVE DISEASE

Abstract Applanation tonometry is a method capable of measuring blood pressure in an artery. In addition to speculation about the reason for the variations in amplitude of femoral pulse waves in dogs with chronic degenerative mitral valve disease (CDMVD), in medicine, it has been demonstrated that many symptoms of heart failure in people are attributable to peripheral vascular functional abnormalities, and they are not highly associated with central hemodynamic parameters. Thus, this study aimed to verify the applicability of the vascular tonometry in dogs, to evaluate the pressure measures of the femoral artery in healthy dogs, and compare them with those of dogs with mitral regurgitation due to CDMVD. Moreover, the parameters established for tonometry were correlated with cardiac index obtained by echocardiography. For this, the data were obtained from 10 healthy dogs and 10 dogs with CDMVD with mitral regurgitation on echocardiography. We observed that the pre-conduction period of the femoral pulse wave was significantly lower in CDMVD than in healthy animals. There was a strong correlation between systolic pressure of the femoral artery with determining parameters of cardiac systolic function in healthy animals. The applanation tonometry of the femoral artery was an applicable technique in dogs.

摘要：压平式动脉测压法（Applanation tonometry）是一种可实现动脉血压测量的技术。目前针对慢性退行性二尖瓣疾病（chronic degenerative mitral valve disease, CDMVD）患犬的股动脉脉搏波振幅变异原因尚存诸多推测，而现有医学研究证实，人类心力衰竭的诸多症状可归因于外周血管功能异常，且与中枢血流动力学参数的关联性较弱。据此，本研究旨在验证压平式动脉测压法在犬类中的应用可行性，评估健康犬股动脉的血压测量值，并将其与因CDMVD引发二尖瓣反流的患犬进行对比；同时将测压法获取的相关参数与超声心动图（echocardiography）检测得到的心脏指数（cardiac index）进行相关性分析。本研究共纳入10只健康犬及10只经超声心动图确诊为CDMVD合并二尖瓣反流的患犬以采集数据。研究结果显示：CDMVD患犬的股动脉脉搏波传导前期显著短于健康犬；在健康犬群体中，股动脉收缩压与心脏收缩功能的各项测定参数呈强相关性；股动脉压平式动脉测压法在犬类中具备切实可行的应用价值。