Despite a high volume of research and regulatory cleared devices, there is no compelling evidence that pulse wave analysis and pulse arrival time provide significant added value in blood pressure measurement accuracy beyond cuff calibration.
Despite the high volume of research and commercial devices, cuffless blood pressure measurement using pulse wave analysis currently lacks compelling evidence of accuracy beyond simple baseline calibration models.
Cuffless blood pressure (BP) measurement offers considerable potential for clinical practice but is a challenging technological field. Many are investigating pulse wave analysis with or without pulse arrival time in which machine learning is applied to pulsatile waveforms obtained with mobile devices (eg, wristbands, smartphones) to estimate BP. These methods generally require individual user calibration with cuff BP measurements or demographics (eg, age, sex). This calibration makes it difficult to evaluate the method's accuracy, and many studies claiming accuracy used inadequate testing procedures. Yet, publications and regulatory-cleared devices continue to rise, seemingly implying technological advancements. An update is provided on the flurry of activity in cuffless BP technologies over the last 2 to 3 years, covering the clinical need, the latest devices, recent publications based on pulse wave analysis and pulse arrival time, progress in developing validation standards for cuffless BP devices, and recent publications on other cuffless BP measurement principles. Despite the high volume of research and development, to date, there is no compelling evidence that pulse wave analysis and pulse arrival time can provide significant added value in BP measurement accuracy beyond the cuff BP or demographic data for calibration. Thus, it is reasonable to at least be skeptical of published and future studies on pulse wave analysis and pulse arrival time for cuffless BP measurement with uncertain testing procedures. It is important to focus on establishing robust validation standards for cuffless BP devices requiring individual user calibration and also pursuing cuffless and calibration-free BP measurement methodologies going forward.
Mukkamala et al. (Tue,) conducted a review in Hypertension. Cuffless blood pressure measurement (Pulse wave analysis and pulse arrival time) vs. Cuff blood pressure measurement or demographic baseline models was evaluated. Despite a high volume of research and regulatory cleared devices, there is no compelling evidence that pulse wave analysis and pulse arrival time provide significant added value in blood pressure measurement accuracy beyond cuff calibration.