DopCuff: Blood Pressure Monitor for LVAD Patients

Patients with terminal heart disease may be implanted with a left ventricular assist device (LVAD), which allows hospital discharge with an acceptable quality of life while awaiting a donor heart to become available or for destination therapy. Prevailing technology for LVAD uses continuous flow centrifugal pumps to provide circulatory support. Careful monitoring of blood pressure in LVAD patients is essential to reduce complications associated with LVADs. However, the non-pulsatile blood flow dynamics of these LVADs confounds accurate blood pressure measurement and cannot be performed using commercially available non-invasive blood pressure sphygmomanometers alone. DopCuff integrates doppler and automated cuff technology into a single blood pressure measuring device that is user-friendly and accurate for outpatient use in LVAD patients to satisfy a significant unmet clinical need for this growing population of patients and their caretakers.