Central Blood Pressure Monitoring

The clinical consequences of hypertension — cardiovascular events such as stroke, heart attack and kidney disease — are, combined, the number one killer in the developed world.

Central blood pressure is the pressure in the ascending aorta, which is to say it is the pressure measured at the point at which blood is ejected from the heart. It is the pressure that the target organs (the brain and kidneys, and the heart itself) are directly exposed to. Due to arterial pressure amplification, central blood pressure is lower than at peripheral locations such as the brachial artery, where blood pressure is traditionally measured. Importantly, estimating central blood pressure from brachial BP is unreliable.

Central pressure has been shown to correlate with target organ damage with numerous studies indicating improved risk assessment relative to brachial blood pressure. Additionally, central blood pressure waveform analysis via ATCOR’s SphygmoCor® technology allows a practitioner to better understand the drivers of hypertension, including arterial stiffness, and can have a critically important role in management decisions that have previously only been based on brachial BP. Assessment of central blood pressure allows for enhanced understanding of cardiovascular risk and individualization of intervention, whether via drugs or lifestyle modification.