These findings support cfPWV as a reliable vascular assessment in individuals >12 months post-stroke, and provide stroke-specific MDC values to guide interpretability in future trials, whereas crPWV, ffPWV and absolute FMD showed poor reliability and relative FMD showed only moderate reliability.
Carotid-femoral PWV (cfPWV) showed good-to-excellent test-retest reliability in both paretic and non-paretic limbs of people more than 12 months post-stroke.
Minimal detectable change for cfPWV at the 95% confidence level was 2.23 m/s in the paretic limb and 1.68 m/s in the non-paretic limb.
Carotid-radial PWV (crPWV) and femoral-dorsalis pedis PWV (ffPWV) had poor reliability bilaterally.
Relative brachial artery FMD showed moderate reliability in both limbs, with wide confidence intervals and MDC95% values of 6.88% (paretic) and 7.65% (non-paretic).
Absolute FMD (change in brachial artery diameter) had poor reliability in both limbs.
The study was the first to establish reliability and MDC for PWV and FMD in people with chronic stroke, in a small sample.
This study asked whether two common tests of blood vessel health, which are used to assess risk after a stroke, give consistent results when repeated. One test measures how stiff the arteries are (pulse wave velocity, PWV) and the other measures how well vessels widen in response to increased blood flow (flow-mediated dilation, FMD). Seventeen adults who were more than a year past their stroke were tested twice within a week, on both the stroke-affected and unaffected sides of the body. The PWV measure that travels from the neck to the groin (carotid-femoral) gave good-to-excellent repeatable results on both sides. The study also calculated how much this measure must change to count as a real change rather than normal test-to-test variation: about 2.2 m/s on the affected side and 1.7 m/s on the unaffected side. PWV measured in the arm or lower leg was not repeatable. The FMD test was only moderately repeatable when expressed as a percentage, and it was poorly repeatable when expressed as an absolute diameter change. This research suggests that carotid-femoral PWV may be a dependable way to track artery stiffness in people living with the long-term effects of stroke, and gives researchers benchmarks for judging whether an intervention changed it. The other measures may need improved methods before being used for this purpose. The sample was small, so the findings should be confirmed in larger groups.
Abreu J, D'Isabella N, Stouth D, MacDonald M, Tang A, Moncion K. (2026). Test-retest reliability and minimal detectable change of pulse wave velocity and flow-mediated dilation in paretic and non-paretic limbs of older adults post-stroke.. Physiological reports. https://doi.org/10.14814/phy2.71138