Introduction: Assessing the role of the vascular bed, especially the endothelium, in initiating and promoting arterial stiffness has a major clinical significance. The identification of endothelial dysfunction from early stages, substrate of high blood pressure (BP), draws at-tention to arterial stiffness as one of the specific patho-logically links in the evolution of cardiovascular disea-ses (CVD).

Objective: To evaluate the influence of major CV risk factors on BP parameters, pulse wave velocity (PWV) and aortic augmentation index (AixAo) in patients with grade 1 hypertension.

Methods: The study was prospective, conducted over a 14-month period and included 58 patients newly dia-gnosed with grade 1 hypertension. These patients were extensively analyzed for the presence of CV risk fac-tors as well as for the determination of arterial stiffness parameters: PWV, AixAo. The statistical analysis was performed in SPSS 20.0.

Results: Mean age was 63.98 ± 12.24 years, and 38% were males. PWV was directly associated with age (r=0.27; p=0.03). Significant changes were also obtai-ned with total cholesterol (r=0.33; p<0.01), LDL-cholesterol (r=0.25; p=0.05), and with each patient SCO-RE risk chart (r=0.25; 0.05). Among CVD pathologies, PWV was associated with the presence of stable an-gina (r=0.31, p=0.02). AixAo was associated with age (r=0.35; p=0.01), systolic BP (r=0.51; p<0.01) and di-astolic BP (r=0.37; p<0.01). Moreover, AixAo was posi-tively associated with total cholesterol (r=0.46; p<0.01) and LDL-cholesterol (r=0.36; p=0.01).

Conclusions: In patients with grade 1 hypertension, arterial stiffness is directly associated with age, to-tal cholesterol and LDL-cholesterol. AixAo is directly associated with systolic and diastolic BP. PWV has also positive correlation with SCORE risk chart. Therefore, it is essential to apply early treatment specific measures to control the CV risk factors.