Performance of a tonometer for arterial pressure measurement during anesthesia in the elderly

Abstract

We investigated performance of an arterial tonometer during anesthesia in the elderly. Thirty patients (17 men and 13 women), ranging from 70 to 86 years old, were included, and agreement between tonometric arterial pressure (TAP) and intraarterial pressure (IAP) was calculated. A total of 6487 paired points was sampled, and values for precision (mean absolute difference +/- SD) were 6.8 +/- 5.2 for systolic, 6.9 +/- 4.6 for mean, and 9.2 +/- 5.4 mmHg for diastolic blood pressures. Values for bias and limits of agreement [mean difference (TAP - IAP) +/- SD, mean difference (TAP - IAP) +/- 2 SD, respectively] for systolic, mean, and diastolic pressure were 1.2 +/- 8.4 and 1.2 +/- 16.8, 5.7 +/- 5.9 and 5.7 +/- 11.8, and 8.6 +/- 6.2 and 8.6 +/- 12.4 mmHg, respectively. Compared with previous data, aging is likely to affect the performance of an arterial tonometer.

An updated clinical primer on large artery mechanics: implications of pulse waveform analysis and arterial tonometry

“…Another commercial device, Jentow, has been developed by the Colin Medical Technology (Komaki, Japan) company and concentrates on features of the radial waveform as recorded by an array of tonometers [22][23][24]. Omron Healthcare (Kyoto, Japan) also has developed a machine to record radial artery pressure using the tonometric method [25], and radial augmentation index is calculated automatically using a fourth-order differential equation [26].…”