Noninvasive continuous blood pressure monitoring via superficial temporal artery tonometry

Objective: Arterial blood pressure (BP) is one of the most important physiological indexes monitored in the perioperative period, yet all existing noninvasive monitoring methods are limited in either sampling rate, measuring site or accuracy. In this work, a systematic evaluation was conducted on a novel BP monitoring approach through the use of the superficial temporal artery tonometry (STAT) method and the corresponding developed BP monitoring system. Methods: Twenty-nine sessions of 30-minutes continuous BP monitoring during resting and during handgrips induced BP fluctuation were conducted in human subjects (n=10) simultaneously with the STAT method, Finapres Finometer and Pulse Transit Time (PTT) method. Results: Using Finapres Finometer as the gold standard for continuous BP, our proposed device resulted in 4.8 ± 2.2 mean absolute difference (MAD) during resting and 6.5 ± 3.4 MAD during handgrips, which significantly outperformed PTT, especially in handgrips. Correlation plots and Bland-Altman plots also suggest the same conclusion.Conclusion: BP monitoring via STAT was systematically evaluated and showed better performance than PTT. Significance: Noninvasive and continuous perioperative BP monitoring via STAT may be feasible and appropriate.