What is a normal aortic pulse wave velocity in children and young adults? Voges and colleagues investigated MRI-derived aortic stiffness from early childhood to adulthood, combining 2D phase-contrast PWV and age-dependent reference-percentile modeling.
Independent open-access research from Voges et al., JCMR 2012, doi:10.1186/1532-429X-14-77.
What did they measure?
The researchers obtained velocity-time curves from the ascending and proximal descending aorta at approximately the same transverse level. They estimated the aortic-arch path distance along the centerline and extracted wave-transit delay from midpoints of the systolic upslope. In this protocol, PWV was distance divided by transit time, not blood-flow velocity.
Conceptual schematic, not an anatomical reconstruction or a reproduction of the paper’s figure.
Measured PWV in the cohort
The overall mean PWV was 3.6 ± 0.7 m/s. The researchers reported the following sex-stratified means. These are overall cohort summaries, not individual-age normative values.
Original graphic of published summary statistics. Each bar represents a cohort mean; bar lengths are proportional and not a full numerical distribution. No statistically significant sex difference was found (P = 0.14).
Age-specific percentiles: use the LMS curves, not an invented trend line
The authors fitted age-specific percentiles using the Lambda–Mu–Sigma (LMS) model. Their Figure 5 illustrates sex-specific PWV reference percentiles, and Table 10 provides age-dependent L, M, S coefficients. The median is the LMS M parameter, while other percentiles require L and S as well. The study population begins at 2.3 years, so percentiles should not be extrapolated to infants or treated as independently observed yearly medians.
The published analysis found modest associations between PWV and age, height, weight and BSA. It did not establish a significant male–female difference. Values should not be compared directly with tonometric carotid–femoral PWV, whole-aorta 2D PC, or global 4D flow PWV without accounting for acquisition region and processing.
For researchers
When reporting a pediatric PWV reference, specify the segment (aortic arch between ascending and proximal descending aorta), 2D PC acquisition settings, temporal sampling, algorithm used to define transit time, and whether a reference curve is observed or model-derived. For percentile comparisons, refer to the original paper’s Table 10 rather than approximating Figure 5 by eye.
Interactive PWV Reference Atlas · Adult 4D flow PWV by age and sex
Primary publication
Voges I, Jerosch-Herold M, Hedderich J, et al. Normal values of aortic dimensions, distensibility, and pulse wave velocity in children and young adults: a cross-sectional study. J Cardiovasc Magn Reson. 2012;14:77. doi:10.1186/1532-429X-14-77.