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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2022 Mar 21.
Published in final edited form as: Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol. 2021 Dec 24;322(4):H493–H522. doi: 10.1152/ajpheart.00392.2021

Table 6. Selected studies comparing PPG-derived parameters of vascular age to reference indicators.

Study PPG Parameter Subjects (Dataset) Reference Indicator Performance
Pulse wave velocity (PWV)
Tsai et al. (94) Finger-toe PWV 100 healthy carotid-femoral (cf) PWV Finger-toe PWV correlated with cfPWV (r=0.67, P< 0.01).
Millasseau et al.(73) Stiffness index 87 healthy cfPWV Stiffness index correlated with cfPWV (r=0.65, P< 0.0001).
von Wowern et al. (139) Aging index(AGI) 112 pregnant and nonpregnant cfPWV Heartrate-adjusted AGI correlated with cfPWV (r =0.64, P< 0.0001).
Wei (127) Spring constant 70 diabetic cfPWV Spring constant correlated with cfPWV (r=−0.72, P< 0.001).
Jang et al.(140) Corrected peak-toonsettime (P2Ocd) 123 healthy brachial-ankle (ba) PWV P2Ocd correlated with baPWV (r=−0.77 and r= −0.68 for male and female,P<0.001). Mean absolute percentage error was 7.53 ± 5.37% for average values, and 3.22 ± 1.47% for each cardiac cycle.
Pulse transit time (PTT)
Obeid et al.(161) Finger-toe PTT, finger-toe PWV 101 healthy and hypertensive cfPTT, cfPWV Correlation coefficient, root-mean-square error, and mean ± SD error were 0.90 (P<0.001), 5.3 ms, – 10.6 ± 5.5 ms between finger-toe PTT and cfPTT; and 0.87 (P<0.001), 0.7m/s, and 0.3 ± 0.8 m/s between finger-toe PWV and cfPWV.
Alivon et al. (86) Finger-toe PTT, finger-toe PWV 86 healthy, hypertensive, and cognitively impaired cfPTT, cfPWV Correlation coefficient and mean ± SD error were 0.77 (P<0.0001) and – 17.5 ± 19.7ms between finger-toe PTT and cfPTT; and 0.66 (P < 0.0001) and 0.2 ± 2.5 m/s between finger-toe PWV and cfPWV.
Systolic (SBP), diastolic (DBP) and mean (MBP) blood pressure (BP)
Nitzan et al. (87) Finger-toe PTT, toe PAT 44 healthy Brachial BP Finger-toe PTT and toe PAT correlated with SBP (r=–0.52, P<0.01, and r=–0.67, P<0.0001), but not with DBP.
Xing et al.(35) 19 pulse wave and 2nd derivative features 1,249 healthy and hypertensive Brachial BP Correlation coefficient and mean ± SD error for subjects ≤ 50 yr were: 0.86 and 0.45 ± 11.3 mmHg for SBP, and 0.83 and 0.31 ± 8.55 mmHg for DBP; and for > 50 yr: 0.79 and −0.68 ± 14.1 mmHg for SBP, and 0.81 and −0.20 ± 9.0 mmHg for DBP using a random forest algorithm.
Hasanzadeh etal. (66) Pulse wave features 942 critically ill (Cuffless BP Estimation) Invasive BP Correlation coefficient, mean ± SD error, and mean absolute error were 0.78, 0.09 ± 10.38 mmHg and 8.22 mmHg for SBP, 0.75, −0.02 ± 5.53 mmHg and 4.58 mmHg for MBP, and 0.72, 0.23 ± 4.22 mmHg and 4.17 mmHg for DBP estimation using an AdaBoost algorithm.
Khalid et al. (40) Pulse area, rise time, width at 25% amplitude 282 criticallyill (MIMIC) and anesthetized (University of Queensland) Brachial BP Mean ± SD error were 0.07 ± 7.1 mmHg for SBP, and -0.08 ± 6.0 mmHg for DBP estimation using BP category-specific regression tree algorithms.
BP category
Liang et al.(28) PPG scalogram 121 criticallyill (MIMIC) Invasive BP category F1 scores for classification as normotensive (NT), prehypertensive (PHT), and hypertensive (HT) were 0.81(NTvs.PHT),0.93 (NTvs.HT), and 0.83 [(NT + PHT)vs. HT] using a convolutional neural network.
Chronological age
Takazawa et al. (88) AGI 600 healthyand arteriosclerotic Chronological age AGI increased with age (r = 0.80, P < 0.001).
Hashimoto et al. (14) AGI, b/a, d/a 848 healthy and hypertensive Chronological age AGI,b/a and d/a correlated with age (r=0.42, r= −0.35, and r=0.37,respectively, with P< 0.001).
Atherosclerosis category
Allen et al.(106) Toe PPG shape index, toe PAT, pulse amplitude 111 healthy and peripheral artery disease (PAD) Ankle-brachial index(ABI) Accuracy (κ) of significant and higher-grade disease detection using: shape index 91% (0.80) and 90% (0.65); bilateral difference in PAT to pulse foot 86% (0.71) and 90% (0.71); bilateral difference in PAT to pulse peak 86% (0.70) and 92% (0.76); pulse amplitude 66% (0.20) and 81% (0.34).
Peltokangas et al. (27) Amplitude ratios, AGI 82 healthy and atherosclerotic Abnormal ABI Area under the ROC curve was 0.70 and 0.79 for finger and toe AGI, respectively, and 0.79 for the best performing toe amplitude ratio.
Jönsson et al. (95) PPG ABI 43 healthy and PAD Doppler ABI PPGABI correlated with Doppler ABI (r = 0.89). Mean ± SD error was 0.05 ± 0.12.

PPG, photoplethysmogram.