From theory into practice: arterial haemodynamics in clinical hypertension.

My address will take you from the peripheral resistance vessels to that system (Fig. 1a) which links the heart to peripheral vessels, and whose roles are to act as a conduit and as a cushion, accepting pulsatile flow at input and delivering this in a steady stream to peripheral vessels [1]. The arterial system can be conceived as a simple tube of very low resistance, terminating in vessels with very high resistance [2]. Mean pressure falls by 1–2 mmHg in the long arterial conduits, but falls abruptly in the arterioles beyond. Impedance mismatch at the arterial/arteriolar junction leads to wave reflection, which causes pressure fluctuations to be greater in peripheral conduit arteries even though the mean pressure is only slightly less. These are some of the issues we must consider. While the arterial system can be represented as a simple tube, the real system is far more complex. Yet it can be approximated by a simple tube.