Sensitivity, Specificity of Pulse Wave Velocity (PWV) test for Cerebral Small Vessel Disease (CSVD): A diagnostic Study

Abstract

Background: present study assessed the sensitivity, specificity and optimal cut-off point of Pulse Wave Velocity (PWV) test for the diagnosis of Cerebral Small Vessel Disease (CSVD).

 Methods: 143 Patients candidates for brain MRI in 2022 were included in this observational, prospective diagnostic study. The MRI results were interpreted by two radiologists and the patients with lesions of small cerebral vessels were divided into three groups based on the Fazekas scale, and those diagnosed with CSVD were subjected to PWV. In order to measure the diagnostic value and cut-off point of PWV test in diagnosing CSVD, ROC diagram was used. The sensitivity and specificity of the test were also determined using a cross table and then ICC analysis. The data were analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics v24.

Results: Rock curve for MeanPWV showed that specificity and sensitivity are 93 and 65.3, respectively. The area under the ROC curve (AUC) was equal to 0.86 with P value <0.001 and the proposed cut-off point was equal to 10.66, and the Youden index of 0.58 shows the high diagnostic value of this test.

Conclusion: The results of the present study show that PWV has sufficient diagnostic power to distinguish healthy people from patients with CSVD, and its use can help in the early diagnosis of lesions of small cerebral vessels and in the direction of Reducing the diagnostic costs of patients with brain lesions will be very useful.