Effect of Cuff Inflation on Blood Pressure, Arousals, Sleep Efficiency, and Desaturations: Sub-Analysis of the VAST Pilot Study

The influence of cuff inflations on night-time measurements during 24 h ambulatory blood pressure (BP) measurements is unknown. We investigated the potential effect of cuff inflations on sleep parameters using measurements taken simultaneously with a cuffless device using pulse-transit-time (PTT). On the first day of measurement, standard cuff-based 24 h BP and cuffless measurements were simultaneously performed on the right and left arms (CUFF/PTT-D). In this experiment, 1–2 days after the first measurement, the cuffless device was worn alone (PTT-D). Only data from the cuffless device were analyzed. The following mean sleep parameters were analyzed: mean systolic and diastolic BP, arousals, sleep efficiency, total arousals, arousal per hour, and desaturations. In total, 21 individuals were prospectively enrolled. The mean (SD) age was 47 (±15) years, and 57% were female. The mean systolic asleep BP during CUFF/PTT-D and during PTT-D were 131 (±21) and 131 (±26) mmHg, respectively. The mean diastolic asleep BP values during CUFF/PTT-D and during PTT-D were 80 (±14) and 84 (±14) mmHg, respectively (p = 0.860, p = 0.100, respectively). Systolic and diastolic asleep mean difference was 0.1 (±18.0) and −3.6 (±9.8) mmHg, respectively. There were significantly more total arousals during PTT-D (p = 0.042). There were no significant differences seen in sleep efficiency (p = 0.339) or desaturations (p = 0.896) between the two measurement periods. We could not show any significant impact from cuff inflations during sleep, as documented by PTT-D measurements.