Beat-to-Beat Blood Pressure Variability as a Predictive Tool for Identifying Cardiovascular Events in Anemic Women

Objectives: Anemia increases preload, reduces afterload resulting in increase in cardiac output. Viscosity of blood is determined by the amount of hemoglobin (Hb) that affects blood pressure (BP) and causes arterial stiffness. Anemia can lead to drastic changes in BP, including, short- and long-term variability in BP which have been recognized recently as important risk factors for development and progression of vascular events. Continuous beat-to-beat BP variability (BPV) captures the intricacies of BP dynamics which are not otherwise collected by intermittent BP monitoring. Blood Pressure Variability is however defined as a progression of variation with time, and hence, the variability is measured over 5 min and can be associated with other markers such as Hb and anemia status. Materials and Methods: Autonomic function testing including assessment of beat-to-beat BPV, heart rate variability, and galvanic skin response (GSR) was performed using the human non-invasive BP nano system and lab chart software. Results: Significant variability in beat-to-beat BP specially in systolic pressure ( P = 0.00001), heart rate variability ( P = 0.0014), and GSR ( P = 0.003) were observed. Conclusion: Beat-to-beat BP monitoring can be used as a reliable indicator of altered autonomic activity in anemia.