Purpose: To show some preliminary results about the possibility to exploit a cardiovascular mathematical model-made patient-specific by noninvasive data routinely measured during ordinary clinical examinations-in order to obtain sufficiently accurate central blood pressure (BP) estimates.
Methods: A closed-loop multiscale (0D and 1D) model of the cardiovascular system is made patient-specific by using as model inputs the individual mean heart rate and left-ventricular contraction time, weight, height, age, sex and mean/pulse brachial BPs. The resulting framework is used to determine central systolic, diastolic, mean and pulse pressures, which are compared with the beat-averaged invasive pressures of 12 patients aged 72 ± 6.61 years.
Results: Errors in central systolic, diastolic, mean and pulse pressures by the model are 4.26 ± 2.81, 5.86 ± 4.38, 4.98 ± 3.95 and 3.51±2.38 mmHg, respectively.
Conclusion: The proposed modeling approach shows a good patient-specific response and appears to be potentially useful in clinical practice. However, this approach needs to be evaluated in a larger cohort of patients and could possibly be improved through more accurate oscillometric BP measurement methods.
Keywords: Central pressure; Multiscale cardiovascular modeling; Noninvasive estimation; Patient-specific models; Validation of cardiovascular models.