Risk factors for cardiovascular disease mediate their effects by altering the structure, properties, and function of wall and endothelial components of arterial blood vessels.1 The ability to detect and monitor change in the physical properties of arteries, representative of the cumulative and integrated influence of hemodynamic, metabolic, and inflammatory stimuli in impairing arterial wall in...

materials and methods in a double blind randomized trial study, 100 patients undergoing elective cardiac surgery were randomized to using heparinized (n = 50) or non-heparinized (normal) saline flush (n = 50) to maintain patency of arterial catheter after operation. indwelling arterial catheters were checked daily for acceptable arterial waveform for three days as primary outcome measures. resu...

The pulse oximetry plethysmographic signal resembles the peripheral arterial pressure waveform, and the degree of respiratory variation in the pulse oximetry wave is close to the degree of respiratory arterial pulse pressure variation. Thus, it is tempting to speculate that pulse oximetry can be used to assess preload responsiveness in mechanically ventilated patients. In this commentary we bri...

The MediWatch is a wrist-mounted noninvasive blood pressure monitor designed to capture the radial pulse waveform using arterial tonometry and yield blood pressure measurements when the waveform is calibrated. An early prototype of this monitor uses a pulse-sensing system with a cylindrical plunger to applanate the radial artery. This prototype was evaluated against simulated blood pressure gen...

The most common method of clinical measurement of arterial blood pressure is by means of the cuff sphygmomanometer. This instrument has provided fundamental quantitative information on arterial pressure in individual subjects and in populations and facilitated estimation of cardiovascular risk related to levels of blood pressure obtained from the brachial cuff. Although the measurement is taken...

The digital plethysmograph is a secondary output of the pulse oximeter, which is commonly used to measure arterial blood saturation (SaO2)61. Digital plethysmography provides noninvasive, continuous, and real-time measurement of arterial pressure with infrared light transmitted through a digit (finger or toe)62. This technique acquires the digital volume pulse (DVP), a waveform that estimates p...

Pulse wave analysis (PWA) allows estimation of cardiac output (CO) based on continuous the arterial blood pressure (AP) waveform. We describe physiology AP waveform, basic principles PWA algorithms for CO estimation, and technologies available clinical practice. The waveform is a complex physiological signal that determined by interplay left ventricular stroke volume, systemic vascular resistan...

The photoplethysmogram (PPG) is the pulsatile waveform produced by the pulse oximeter, which is widely used for monitoring arterial oxygen saturation in patients. Various methods for extracting the breathing rate from the PPG waveform have been compared using a consistent data set, and a novel technique using autoregressive modelling is presented. This novel technique is shown to outperform the...