Semi-automatic system developed to quantify arterial baroreflex sensitivity

The arterial baroreflex governs the arterial pressure efficiency in response to ambiental and internal influences. Decreased arterial baroreflex sensitivity (BRS) is involved in several cardiovascular diseases and its magnitude can be used as an independent predictor for sudden death in coronary disease and heart failure. Therefore, quantifying BRS play a key role in understanding the injury mechanism, monitoring treatment results, and diminishing the morbidity and mortality due to cardiac diseases. This work presents a semi-automatic system developed in LabView® for assessing the BRS using the sequence method. In order to investigate the system´s performance, the BRS in postural change was tested. Eleven health young volunteers had the arterial pressure registered by Finapres in supine position and 70°-tilt position. The protocol was conduced three times for evaluating the result reproducibility. The results point out a system able to detect the reduction of the BRS because of the orthostatic tilt (p < 0,01 and mean BRS decrease > 60%).