A New Dimension of Blood Pressure Measurement in Man: 24-h Ambulatory Continuous Noninvasive Recording with Portapres

Portapres is a new portable device, recently developed by TNO, Amsterdam, which enables continuous 24 hour finger blood pressure recordings in ambulatory subjects. Like Finapres it is based on the volume-clamp method of Penaz (vascular unloading) (Pennaz 1973; Penaz et al. 1976) and the physiocal criteria of Wesseling (Wesseling et al. 1986, 1990). It is an attractive and accurate noninvasive alternative for intraarterial ambulatory 24 hour blood pressure measurement in man (Imholz 1990 a, b; Langewouters et al. 1990, 1992 in this volume). Here we shall report our first experience with Portapres and demonstrate some applications it can be used for in cardiovascular research.