PILOT STUDY TO ESTABLISH THE USE OF BRACHIAL ULTRASOUND TO MEASURE VASCULAR R

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This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. The primary objective is to establish local expertise in brachial artery ultrasound assessment of vascular function and to develop local normative data in adult populations. Recent interest in the measurement of vascular function in vivo in humans, in particular endothelial responses, has resulted in a proliferation of techniques for such measurements. Some of these techniques are invasive, requiring the placement of an indwelling intra-arterial and intravenous catheters. These techniques are therefore unsuitable for use in large populations, and carry increased procedural risk to study personnel when subjects with blood-borne infectious diseases are involve. An alternative, noninvasive technique using brachial artery ultrasound to measure the vessel response to stimuli is available. Currently this brachial ultrasound technique is available locally only on a limited basis. The PI Dr. Dube is PI of the NHLBI grant providing funds for this pilot project, which will then begin using brachial ultrasound as a substitute for the currently-applied invasive femoral blood flow measurements after the ultrasound technique is established. We plan to establish expertise in the performance of the technique, as well as collect a local set of normative data. As with other ultrasound measurements, the success of these measurements is highly operator-dependent. Therefore, in order to assess and minimize variability due to the technical performance of the technique, we need to perform the technique on a collection of ambulatory volunteers and assess intra-individual variability over time. Adequate technique will be verified through quality control assessments of variability in the data collected from an initial cohort of normal subjects as well as re-reads of the measurements by a laboratory with extensive experience in performing this test (University of Wisconsin Atherosclerosis Imaging Program www.cvrc.wisc.edu/airp/, Dr. James Stein, Director). During the establishment of the skills needed for the performance of these studies, a set of normative data will be collected to serve both as quality controls and also as normal controls for comparison to future studies.