Pulse transit time estimation methods in a novel arterial simulator with variable pulse wave velocity

Arterial stiffness is one of the key indicators of cardiovascular diseases, for which an early identification is crucial. Pulse Wave Velocity (PWV) is a widely used parameter to assess arterial stiffness. In clinical practice, it is common use to measure the PWV through the estimation of the Pulse Transit Time (PTT). In this study a comparison among three PTT estimation methods (peak-to-peak, tangentsecant, and cross-correlation) is proposed and applied to waveforms acquired on a novel arterial simulator able to change the stiffness of an arterial surrogate by varying the transmural pressure. After a measurement campaign carried out for several pressure values, the cross-correlation method has been confirmed to be the most robust, with uncertainties below 1.3 \%. The operating principle of the arterial simulator has been confirmed since a change in transmural pressure of 25 kPa resulted in a change in PWV mean values of up to 1.7 m/s.