Cuffless wearable devices offer continuous blood pressure monitoring, but professional guidelines do not recommend their clinical use until more robust real-world evidence on accuracy is available.
Cuffless wearable devices for blood pressure monitoring show promise for continuous data collection but currently lack the robust validation required for clinical use according to professional guidelines.
Hypertension remains the leading cause of premature mortality. Its effective management is hindered by sub-optimal monitoring from intermittent measurement of blood pressure which often lacks important prognostic data such as patterns of blood pressure variability. This article provides a summary of the technologies used in wearable devices, an evaluation of their emerging role in the management of hypertension, and current challenges to their utility. Unlike traditional cuff-based devices, cuffless technology utilises range of sensors and physiological principles including peripheral pulse wave characteristics and photoplethysmography together with algorithms to estimate blood pressure. Cuffless devices are unobtrusive and can be worn continuously providing longer-term data. As such they can bridge gaps in identifying and monitoring high-risk hypertension profiles, sleep periods data, dipping status, and blood pressure variability, which can guide individualised clinical decision making. However, due to rapid innovation and technological heterogeneity and associated lack of appropriate validation frameworks, there remain significant concerns on the accuracy and reliability of cuffless wearables for clinical use. Despite their potential and market availability, professional society guidelines do not recommend the use of cuffless devices for clinical decision making until more robust and complete real-world evidence is available.
Eltayeb et al. (Fri,) conducted a review in Hypertension. Cuffless wearable devices vs. Traditional cuff-based devices was evaluated. Cuffless wearable devices offer continuous blood pressure monitoring, but professional guidelines do not recommend their clinical use until more robust real-world evidence on accuracy is available.