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Accurate, continuous arterial blood pressure (BP) monitoring usually requires arterial catheterization. A new finger cuff device uses a vascular unloading technique for continuous, noninvasive BP monitoring. The cuff emits infrared light, with transmission through the finger dependent on blood volume in the digital artery. The finger cuff pressure necessary to keep the blood volume in the artery constant correlates with BP.
To compare the accuracy of this method versus the traditional oscillometric method, researchers prospectively studied 1155 paired BP measurements from 130 emergency department patients requiring cardiovascular monitoring. During a 2-hour period, BP was measured continuously with the finger cuff device and every 15 minutes…