Pressor tests are considered a useful method to better understand the pathophysiology of hypertension. However, the blood pressure response to the pressor tests is frequently evaluated with indirect blood pressure measurements, which have been proven to be insufficiently accurate. The intraarterial Oxford Instruments system represents a unique method to reliably assess blood pressure changes during these manoeuvres. A computer programme is presented for the automatic analysis of blood pressure and heart rate response to pressor tests performed during intraarterial monitoring.

Cold pressor, head-up tilting, hand grip and bicycle ergometry tests were studied. The analysis of the blood pressure signals was performed on a Data General MV 10000 mainframe and systolic, diastolic, mean blood pressure and heart rate were evaluated beat by beat. The following calculations were made: (1) Mean baseline blood pressure and heart rate values over 30 seconds before each test. (2) The same parameters every 30 seconds for the cold pressor test, every 60 seconds for the hand grip test and for the head-up tilting, every 120 seconds for the bicycle ergometry during the whole test. (3) The lowest and highest 5 consecutive beats average of systolic, diastolic, mean blood pressure and heart rate. (4) The difference between the preceding averages and mean baseline blood pressure and heart rate. The time during the test when the maximal BP and HR variation occurs was recorded. A beat by beat plotting of every test was also obtained.

These data allow a very accurate and synthetic evaluation of blood pressure and heart rate response to the various pressor tests.