Blood pressure agreement between ideal and loose-fitting cuffs in anesthetized dogs

Indirect blood pressure monitoring is used frequently in veterinary medicine. Blood pressure cuff looseness has not been investigated as a cause of erroneous measurements.

To determine if cuff looseness affects blood pressure measurements in healthy anesthetized dogs.

Between December 2020 and May 2022 at an institutional practice, 62 anesthetized healthy dogs were separated into two groups: ≤ 20 kg and > 20 kg. Tail base circumference of each dog was measured, and baseline was defined as ideal (0% looseness factor). The cuff was manually loosened sequentially from 0% to 2%, 5%, 8%, 10% and 15% looseness factors. High definition oscillometry was used to measure systolic (SAP), mean (MAP) and diastolic (DAP) arterial blood pressures. Bland and Altman for repeated measures was used to analyze SAP, MAP and DAP measurements of baseline and each looseness factor. Acceptable bias and limits of agreement (LoA) were set using American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine guidelines.

All biases were acceptable. In dogs ≤ 20 kg, LoA for all SAP looseness factors and MAP looseness factors of 10% and 15% did not fall within the guidelines. In dogs > 20 kg, LoA for all measurements except SAP 5%, 8% and 10% looseness factors fell within the guidelines.

Loosening a cuff up to 15% did not result in significant changes to blood pressure measurements of healthy anesthetized dogs using high definition oscillometry.