A novel art of continuous non-invasive blood pressure measurement

Abstract

Wearable sensors to continuously measure blood pressure (BP) and derived cardiovascular variables have the potential to revolutionize patient monitoring. Current wearable methods analyzing time components (e.g., pulse transit time) still lack clinical accuracy, whereas existing technologies for direct BP measurement are too bulky. Here we present a new art of continuous non-invasive arterial blood pressure monitoring (CNAP2GO). It directly measures BP by using a new "volume control technique" and could be used for small wearable sensors integrated in a finger ring. As a software prototype, CNAP2GO showed excellent BP measurement performance in comparison with invasive BP in 46 patients having surgery. The resulting pulsatile BP signal carries information to derive cardiac output and other hemodynamic variables. We show that CNAP2GO can be miniaturized for wearable approaches. CNAP2GO potentially constitutes the breakthrough for wearable sensors for blood pressure and flow monitoring in both ambulatory and in-hospital clinical settings.