Session P7A.4

Estimation of Functional Characteristics in a Radial Artery Using a Pulse Pressure Profile under Increased Hold-down Pressure

J Lee*, EJ Choi, HJ Lee, YJ Lee,
HH Ryu, JY Kim

Korean Institute of Oriental Medicine
Daejeon, Korea

The pulse pressure measured on the skin above a brachial or radial artery has a semi-circular profile during the hold-down pressure increase. There have been several studies to estimate the measuring systolic, diastolic and mean blood pressure from this profile.
In this study, we measured 552 healthy subjects’ pulse pressure on radial artery at five different hold-down pressures ranged from 40mmHg to 200mmHg and generated the profiles (pulse pressure vs. hold-down pressure) using an interpolation technique. Then we examined at what hold-down pressure maximize the pulse pressure value. The hold-down pressure was normalized into a 10 scale and defined as Pm.
We found that the average of all subject’s Pm is 5.67±2.39 (Mean±SD) and older subjects tends to have higher Pm. When the Pm of teens and fifties were compared, these are significantly different (p<0.000) and the average of teens is 4.19 versus to that of fifties, 6.33.
We also tested the Pm of 15 volunteers who are more than 40 years old and diagnosed with hypertension. The average of their Pm is 6.65±2.38 and it is higher than that of the 15 healthy subjects (4.57) in similar ages, and significant difference was found between them (p<0.02).
In conclusion, we found that Pm, the hold-down pressure which corresponds to maximum pulse pressure, can be an indicator which estimate the function of artery. Interestingly, Korean traditional doctors have diagnosed the ‘Float-Sink Pulse’ in similar mechanism.

(Abstract Control Number: 228)