The importance of arterial stiffness in pediatric patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus: What's new?

Youths with type 1 diabetes (T1D) exhibits higher levels of pulse wave velocity (PWV) compared to healthy controls. Higher PWV in T1D subjects is associated with increased hazard of progression in albuminuria, decline in eGFR, cardiovascular (CV) events and mortality. In the recently published work by Georeli et al., increased PWV was associated with poor glycemic control as expressed by time-in-range (TIR) < 50 % in T1D children, adolescents and young adults. This finding is of great interest, since it is well known that glycemic control, as measured by TIR, is an important contributor of CV risk. The duration of TIR < 50 % is not reported by the authors, but is of importance, knowing that CGM provide data for the last 3–6 months, depending on the CGM model. In conclusion, PWV looks promising for risk stratification in T1D, but its exact role in T1D still remains to be fully explored.