Systolic and Diastolic Blood Pressure Measurements by Transcutaneous Doppler Ultrasound in Premature Infants in Critical Care Nurseries and at Closed-Heart Surgery

Abstract

The Doppler ultrasound unit is an automatic, battery-operated, portable instrument which can transmit and detect ultrasound waves and therefore serve as a highly sensitive auscultatory device for blood-pressure measurements. The instrument was used to measure blood pressure in 32 premature infants weighing from 1000 to 2068 gm. Results were in close agreement with values simultaneously obtained by direct intra-aortic cannulation in 20 infants. Doppler mean ± S.E. was 76.65 ± 4.15 mm. Hg systolic and 66.75 ± 2.91 mm. Hg diastolic, while corresponding intra-aortic values were 76.33 ± 2.77 mm. Hg systolic and 61.61 ± 2.59 mm. Hg diastolic (p> 0.45 and > 0.40, respectively). The correlation coefficient for the two groups was 0.9845 (p