Comparison of noninvasive oscillometric and intra-arterial blood pressure measurements in children admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit

Abstract

Introduction: Non-invasive blood pressure measurement (NIBP) is accepted as the standard monitoring modality in most clinical settings. However, whenever there is a need for accurate, reliable, beat-to-beat monitoring of blood pressure, an intra-arterial catheter (IBP) is considered the gold standard. The perceived superiority of such invasive monitoring helps justifies the placement of intra-arterial catheters and leads some intensivists to forego NIBP monitoring in patients once such a catheter is placedObjective: To study the correlation between non-invasive blood pressure (NIBP) measurements and invasive arterial blood pressure (IBP) measurements in critically ill children admitted in a Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU).Methods: Data collected from critically ill children with arterial BP monitoring admitted to the PICU, Lotus Hospital for Women and Children, Hyderabad over one-year duration. Both noninvasive and invasive readings of BP including systolic, diastolic and mean BP were recorded and tabulated for comparison and statistical analysis.Results: Systolic and diastolic blood pressure values recorded at 8AM, 4PM and 12 midnight by IBP and NIBP correlate with each other significantly. The correlation values for SBP are 0.997, 0.993 and 0.991 respectively with P values being less than 0.001 at every recording while for DBP the correlation values are 0.989, 0.994 and 0.991 respectively with P values being less than 0.001 at every recordingConclusion: Significant correlation was observed between BP measured by invasive (IBP) and noninvasive method (NIBP) in patients admitted to a pediatric intensive care unit in a tertiary care center.