Do auscultatory and Penaz blood pressure measurements accurately reflect intra-arterial blood pressure during profound heat stress and orthostatic challenge?
Auscultatory and Penaz systolic blood pressure measurements fail to accurately track decreases in intra-arterial systolic blood pressure during profound heat stress, though they are comparable during orthostatic challenge.
Despite frequent reporting of blood pressure (BP) during profound passive heat stress, both with and without a hypotensive challenge, the method by which BP is measured often varies between laboratories. It is unknown whether auscultatory and finger BP measures accurately reflect intra-arterial BP during dynamic changes in cardiac output and peripheral resistance associated with the aforementioned conditions. The purpose of this investigation was to test the hypothesis that auscultatory BP measured at the brachial artery, and finger BP measured by the Penaz method, are valid measures of intra-arterial BP during a passive heat stress and a heat-stressed orthostatic challenge, via lower body negative pressure (LBNP). Absolute (specific aim 1) and the change in (specific aim 2) systolic (SBP), diastolic (DBP), and mean BPs (MBP) were compared at normothermia, after a core temperature increase of 1.47 ± 0.09°C, and during subsequent LBNP. Heat stress did not change auscultatory SBP (6 ± 11 mmHg; P = 0.16), but Penaz SBP (-22 ± 16 mmHg; P 0.05). In conclusion, auscultatory SBP and Penaz SBP failed to track the decrease in intra-arterial SBP that occurred during the profound heat stress, while decreases in arterial BP during an orthostatic challenge are comparable between methodologies.
Ganio et al. (Thu,) studied this question.
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