Comparison of central blood pressure devices on the basis of a modified protocol of the European Society of Hypertension: Application to the Centron cBP301

OBJECTIVES: Central blood pressure (cBP) and pulse pressure amplification (PPA) are receiving renewed interest with the increase in the availability of noninvasive techniques that enable its measurement. However, to date, there is no standardized protocol to validate their accuracy. Although invasive comparison seems intellectually ideal, it will soon raise technical and ethical issues with the growing number of devices to be validated. We proposed a modified ESH-IP2010 protocol for electronic brachial devices to validate noninvasively systolic cBP and pulse pressure amplification, and used it to compare the newly commercialized Centron cBP301 device with radial tonometry SphygmoCor. METHODS: Radial tonometric SphygmoCor measurements were performed four times alternated with three Centron cBP301 measurements. Each Centron recording was compared with the most favourable SphygmoCor recordings performed immediately before or after and calibrated with Centron peripheral systolic and diastolic blood pressure measurements. RESULTS: Following protocol requirements, 33 individuals (21 men and 12 women) were recruited in the low, medium and high peripheral BP range. Systolic cBP varied from 88 to 188 and the difference between the devices was-0.33±3.28 mmHg (m±SD). It fell within the ESH-IP2010 pass requirements for the number of measurements within 5, 10 and 15 mmHg. The PPA varied from 1.13 to 2.09 and the difference between devices was -0.03±0.11, which showed good agreement for the PPA. CONCLUSION: The Centron cBP301 device was compared with the similarly calibrated SphygmoCor with a modified ESH-IP2010 protocol. It provided accurate measurements of systolic cBP and PPratio. © 2014 Wolters Kluwer Health | Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.