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Elemer K. Zsigmond, MD
University of Illinois at the Medical Center The Abraham Lincoln School of Medicine Chicago

JAMA. 1981;245(7):703.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.—

Often there is a great reliance placed on the monitoring of intra-arterial blood pressure (BP) by sophisticated transducers and recorders without the awareness of potential pitfalls in methodology. Since 1960 when I started using intraarterial BP measurements in the management of critically ill patients, I encountered scores of cases in which blind reliance on the directly monitored arterial pressure led to catastrophic iatrogenic complications or death. Proper selection of the arterial catheterization site, the type of the catheter, the method of the anticoagulation, the type of connecting lines and transducers, the adequacy of the recording equipment, and the frequency and accuracy of recalibration can substantially alter the systolic or peak pressures, mean pressures, and diastolic or minimum BPs.

Comparison of direct intra-arterial BP with noninvasive computerized oscillometric measurements on the contralateral extremities of patients without vascular diseases showed greater reliability and dependability of the oscillometric than the . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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