Atherosclerosis is a disease affecting the function of arteries, and is one of the underlying causes of stroke, heart attack and other cardiovascular diseases. These diseases are some of the highest causes of morbidity and mortality in North America. As an inflammatory disease that involves the endothelium of blood vessels, atherosclerosis causes arteries to stiffen and become blocked with plaques. This leads to decreased function of these arteries, which at first is asymptomatic, but at later stages can block blood supply to the heart or brain.~The Endo-PAT 2000 is a device designed to measure endothelial function using finger probes placed onto the finger tip of a patient. It is made to detect the presence of peripheral endothelial dysfunction, which develops under the same mechanisms as coronary disease. Risk factors for heart disease are well recognized, and include gender, race, weight, smoking status, and the presence of hypertension, diabetes, and elevated cholesterol. While these factors are monitored in the clinical setting, the actual damage to vascular endothelium has previously been difficult to quantify. The EndoPAT system offers a novel method of assessing endothelial function as an aggregate outcome of all of these risk factors.
Our study aims to evaluate endothelial function using the non-invasive EndoPAT device, and compare this assessment to traditional cardiovascular risk calculation tools and carotid intima media thickness measurements. We look to determine whether the discovery of endothelial dysfunction provides incremental risk stratification over traditional and CIMT methods of cardiovascular risk assessment.