A new method of calibrating left ventricular pressure tracings obtained from micromanometers

An improved method of calibrating indwelling, or acutely inserted high fidelity micromanometers is presented. The proposed technique consists of linear regression of pressure data obtained from a fluid filled lumen with those obtained from a micromanometer and applying this regression equation to the data obtained from the micromanometer. The conventional calibration technique of matching systolic and late diastolic pressures was developed before analog to digital converters were available on-line in most laboratories. This method can result in erroneous hemodynamic measurements derived from the high fidelity recordings depending on the amount of ringing observed in the pressure recordings from a fluid filled transducer.