Novel Measures of Arterial Hemodynamics and Wave Reflections Associated with Clinical Outcomes in Patients with Heart Failure 

Rebecca Steinberg and colleagues studied 137 patients with heart failure with reduced ejection fraction and found that arterial stiffness and wave reflections can increase afterload and impair cardiovascular function. In these patients, reflected wave transit time and wasted pressure effort were found to be more strongly associated with clinical outcomes than traditional metrics of large artery stiffness or wave reflection. These findings suggest that novel measures of large artery stiffness and wave reflections may have prognostic capabilities in patients with heart failure.