[Clinical evaluation of finger blood pressure measurement devices for home-use]

We evaluated the accuracy of two types of finger blood pressure (BP) measurement devices for home-use (EW276 H, NATIONAL Ltd. and HEM 804F, OMRON Ltd.) by comparing BP values with upper-arm BP measured with a standard mercury column sphygmomanometer in 28 elderly subjects (13 Hypertensives and 15 normotensives). The correlation coefficient of systolic BP value and that obtained by each method was R2 = 0.5 for EW 276H and R2 = 0.6 for HEM 804F. The higher the systolic BP, the greater was the difference between the upper-arm and finger BP values. The magnitude of the difference between finger and upper-arm values for systolic BP did not correlate with pulse wave velocity. An underestimation of the finger BP device in systolic BP was 23.8 mmHg in hypertensives and 7.6 mmHg in normotensives for the EW 276H, and 15.3 and 3.5 mmHg, respectively for the HEM 804F. This study demonstrated a large difference between the finger BP value measured with the home-use devices and upper-arm BP value measured with a standard mercury sphygmonanometer in elderly hypertensive patients. The difference may be due not only to atherosclerotic change, but also to methodological factors related to finger BP measurement.