Accuracy and User Acceptability of 24-hour Ambulatory Blood Pressure Monitoring by a Prototype Cuffless Multi-Sensor Device Compared to a Conventional Oscillometric Device.

What is the context?Hypertension is a major risk factor for cardiovascular and cerebrovascular end-organ damage, morbidity, and mortality world-wide.Accurate measurement of blood pressure is essential for the diagnosis and management of hypertension.What is new?Cuffless blood pressure devices that allow measurement of blood pressure without a pressure cuff is a promising and novel method of blood pressure estimation.The objective of this study is to assess whether pulse arrival time alone can be used to estimate blood pressure accurately during 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure monitoring, using a prototype cuffless device placed on the chest.Our analysis shows that a general model based on pulse arrival time overestimated ambulatory blood pressure, especially during nighttime.User acceptability was higher with the cuffless device compared to a conventional cuff-based oscillometric device during 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure monitoring.What is the impact?This study provides further evidence that accurate blood pressure estimations cannot be achieved by using pulse arrival time alone as a surrogate for blood pressure measurements.