Combining Local PWV and Quantified Arterial Changes for Calibration-Free Cuffless Blood Pressure Estimation: A Clinical Validation

This study proposes a novel calibration-free cuffless blood pressure monitor (BPM). Unlike the cuffless BPM that requires timing correction with the traditional BPM, the calibration-free cuffless BPM can directly estimate the arterial blood pressure (BP) based on the hemodynamics mathematical model. Our proposed device integrates a pair of piezoelectric ceramics as pressure sensors to sense the pressure wave in the radial artery. It calculates the local pulse wave velocity (PWV) with our waveform detection algorithm of our proposed one. A photoplethysmogram (PPG) probe is set between the pair of pressure wave sensors. This PPG probe is used to monitor the radial artery’s PPG intensity ratio (PIR). We design PPG signal processing algorithms to quantify the PIR. We recruited 129 participants for the BP monitoring experiment. Compared with the reference sphygmomanometer, the error mean ± standard deviations (STDs) systolic BP (SBP) was 2.1 ± 3.4, and the correlation r-value was 0.97. The diastolic BP (DBP) was 0.8 ± 4.2, the correlation r-value was 0.90, and p < 0.05 is taken as statistically significant. A new type of wearable continuous calibration-free BPM can replace the situation that requires the use of traditional ambulatory BPM and reduce patient discomfort. Our proposed BP measurement passed all ANSI/AAMI/ISO 81060-2:20181_5.2.4.1.2 data analysis criterion 1 and 2 standard requirements.