Conscious Indirect Blood Pressure Measurements in Asiatic Black Bears (Ursus thibetanus)

At Animals Asia's Vietnam Bear Rescue Center (VBRC), 40% of the current population has been diagnosed with systemic hypertension. Systemic hypertension lesions have led to fatal consequences in the form of aortic aneurysm and rupture. Historically, veterinarians were only able to diagnose systemic hypertension by identifying validated secondary structural heart and retinal lesions during annual health checks of anesthetized bears. In 2021, the VBRC began training bears for cooperative conscious blood pressure measurements to increase monitoring frequency and expedite the diagnosis of systemic hypertension in affected bears. The objective of this study was to evaluate a noninvasive method of blood pressure measurement in trained, cooperative Asiatic black bears. Indirect blood pressure measurements, using the oscillometric technique, were validated with direct arterial measurements in nine bears (6 male, 3 female, ages 13-22 years) undergoing anesthesia for annual health checks. Eleven trained bears at the VBRC without secondary lesions of systemic hypertension (6 male, 5 female, ages 7-23 years) were used to develop normal systolic ranges for Asiatic black bears using the indirect technique. Mean blood pressure measurements for this group of trained bears (n = 11) were 180.65 +/- 37 mmHg (95% CI: 126-255) systolic. These results suggest that indirect blood pressures may be a useful tool to monitor blood pressure in cooperative conscious bears at the VBRC.