Wearable ultrasound sensors for continuous blood pressure monitoring: Breaking through the limitations of traditional methods

Zhenghao Xu; Yuhan Zhao; He Tian

doi:10.1088/1674-4926/26020064

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Wearable ultrasound sensors for continuous blood pressure monitoring: Breaking through the limitations of traditional methods

Zhenghao Xu^{1, §}, Yuhan Zhao^{2, §} and He Tian^2,

+ Author Affiliations

1. Elmore Family School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA
2. School of Integrated Circuits & Beijing National Research Center for Information Science and Technology (BNRist), Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
^§Zhenghao Xu and Yuhan Zhao contributed equally to this work and should be considered as co-first authors.

Author Bio:

Zhenghao Xu is an undergraduate student pursuing a B.S. in Computer Engineering at the Elmore Family School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Purdue University. He is a research assistant in Professor He Tian’s group at Tsinghua University. His academic and research interests include wearable health monitoring, and embedded AI.

Yuhan Zhao obtained his B.E. degree in Electronic and Information Engineering from Hunan University. Subsequently, he joined Professor He Tian’s group at Tsinghua University and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Integrated Circuit Science and Engineering. His research mainly focuses on flexible sensing and neuromorphic perception and computing.

He Tian received his Ph.D. degree from the Institute of Microelectronics, Tsinghua University in 2015. He is currently a Tenured Associate Professor and Deputy Director at Institute of Integrated Electronics, School of Integrated Circuits, Tsinghua University. He is the recipient of the National High-level Leading Talents, National Outstanding Youth Foundation and Highly Cited Scholar in Web of Science 2024. His current research interest includes various 2D material-based devices with more than 250 publications and more than 10000 times citations.

Corresponding author: He Tian, tianhe88@tsinghua.edu.cn

DOI: 10.1088/1674-4926/26020064CSTR: 32376.14.1674-4926.26020064

References

[1]	Sai Z, Geonho P, Katherine L, et al. Clinical validation of a wearable ultrasound sensor of blood pressure. Nature Biomedical Engineering, 2024: 1
[2]	Bernd V S, Azriel P, Ulrich J P. Clinical review: complications and risk factors of peripheral arterial catheters used for haemodynamic monitoring in anaesthesia and intensive care medicine. Critical care, 6(3), 2002: 199
[3]	Pickering T G. What will replace the mercury sphygmomanometer? Blood Press Monit, 2003, 8(1): 23
[4]	Lin M Y, Hu H J, Zhou S, et al. Soft wearable devices for deep-tissue sensing. Nat Rev Mater, 2022, 7(11): 850 doi: 10.1038/s41578-022-00427-y
[5]	Boubouchairopoulou N, Kollias A, Chiu B, et al. A novel cuffless device for self-measurement of blood pressure: Concept, performance and clinical validation. J Hum Hypertens, 2017, 31(7): 479
[6]	Wang C H, Li X S, Hu H J, et al. Monitoring of the central blood pressure waveform via a conformal ultrasonic device. Nat Biomed Eng, 2018, 2(9): 687
[7]	IEEE standard for wearable, cuffless blood pressure measuring devices - amendment 1. IEEE Std 1708a2019 (Amendment to IEEE Std 1708-2014), 2019, 1
[8]	International organization for standardization. Non-invasive sphygmomanometers–part 2: Clinical investigation of intermittent automated measurement type, November 2018
[9]	Marketing clearance of diagnostic ultrasound systems and transducers: Guidance for industry and food and drug administration staff. Technical Report FDA-2017-D-5372, Food and Drug Administration, 2023
[10]	American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine. Recommended maximum scanning times for displayed thermal index (TI) values. Journal of Ultrasound in Medicine, 2023, 42(1): E15
[11]	Thomas S J, Booth J N III, Jaeger B C, et al. Association of sleep characteristics with nocturnal hypertension and nondipping blood pressure in the CARDIA study. J Am Heart Assoc, 2020, 9(7): e015062
[12]	El-Hajj C, Kyriacou P A. A review of machine learning techniques in photoplethysmography for the non-invasive cuff-less measurement of blood pressure. Biomed Signal Process Control, 2020, 58: 101870 doi: 10.1016/j.bspc.2020.101870
[13]	Koo T K, Li M Y. A guideline of selecting and reporting intraclass correlation coefficients for reliability research. J Chiropr Med, 2016, 15(2): 155

Fig. 1. (Color online) (a) Previous state-of-the-art design with isolated acoustic windows^[1]. (b) Redesigned sensor architecture. The 20-element linear array (0.5-mm pitch) forms a 10-mm continuous acoustic window with a silver epoxy backing layer to dampen transducer ringing^[1]. (c) The ultrasound sensor being applied onto curvilinear skin surfaces, showing excellent mechanical robustness^[1]. Adapted from Zhou, S., Park, G., Longardner, K. et al. Clinical validation of a wearable ultrasound sensor of blood pressure. Nat. Biomed. Eng. (2024). With permission from Springer Nature (License No. 6213330173849).

DownLoad: Full-Size Img PowerPoint

Fig. 2. (Color online) ICU validation (n = 4). Top: ultrasound SBP/MAP/DBP (red/green/blue) overlaid with the arterial line (black) during 10–12 h of monitoring. Bottom: wavelet coherence between MAP traces shows sustained, in-phase coupling at long periods (warm colors) within the reliable region bounded by the white dashed cone. (a–d) corresponds to patients 1–4^[1]. Adapted from Zhou, S., Park, G., Longardner, K. et al. Clinical validation of a wearable ultrasound sensor of blood pressure. Nat. Biomed. Eng. (2024). With permission from Springer Nature (License No. 6213330173849).

DownLoad: Full-Size Img PowerPoint

[1]	Sai Z, Geonho P, Katherine L, et al. Clinical validation of a wearable ultrasound sensor of blood pressure. Nature Biomedical Engineering, 2024: 1
[2]	Bernd V S, Azriel P, Ulrich J P. Clinical review: complications and risk factors of peripheral arterial catheters used for haemodynamic monitoring in anaesthesia and intensive care medicine. Critical care, 6(3), 2002: 199
[3]	Pickering T G. What will replace the mercury sphygmomanometer? Blood Press Monit, 2003, 8(1): 23
[4]	Lin M Y, Hu H J, Zhou S, et al. Soft wearable devices for deep-tissue sensing. Nat Rev Mater, 2022, 7(11): 850 doi: 10.1038/s41578-022-00427-y
[5]	Boubouchairopoulou N, Kollias A, Chiu B, et al. A novel cuffless device for self-measurement of blood pressure: Concept, performance and clinical validation. J Hum Hypertens, 2017, 31(7): 479
[6]	Wang C H, Li X S, Hu H J, et al. Monitoring of the central blood pressure waveform via a conformal ultrasonic device. Nat Biomed Eng, 2018, 2(9): 687
[7]	IEEE standard for wearable, cuffless blood pressure measuring devices - amendment 1. IEEE Std 1708a2019 (Amendment to IEEE Std 1708-2014), 2019, 1
[8]	International organization for standardization. Non-invasive sphygmomanometers–part 2: Clinical investigation of intermittent automated measurement type, November 2018
[9]	Marketing clearance of diagnostic ultrasound systems and transducers: Guidance for industry and food and drug administration staff. Technical Report FDA-2017-D-5372, Food and Drug Administration, 2023
[10]	American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine. Recommended maximum scanning times for displayed thermal index (TI) values. Journal of Ultrasound in Medicine, 2023, 42(1): E15
[11]	Thomas S J, Booth J N III, Jaeger B C, et al. Association of sleep characteristics with nocturnal hypertension and nondipping blood pressure in the CARDIA study. J Am Heart Assoc, 2020, 9(7): e015062
[12]	El-Hajj C, Kyriacou P A. A review of machine learning techniques in photoplethysmography for the non-invasive cuff-less measurement of blood pressure. Biomed Signal Process Control, 2020, 58: 101870 doi: 10.1016/j.bspc.2020.101870
[13]	Koo T K, Li M Y. A guideline of selecting and reporting intraclass correlation coefficients for reliability research. J Chiropr Med, 2016, 15(2): 155