A novel principle for detection of systolic and diastolic blood pressure tested in man and rat with special reference to its applicability in rat studies.

A non-invasive procedure for the application of a photodetector method in rat studies to obtain both systolic and diastolic blood pressure measurements is described. The method has been tested against well-established procedures in rats and in human beings and has proved sufficiently fast and reliable for use in long-term studies. Regression analysis of simultaneously obtained invasive versus non-invasive measurements yielded correlation coefficients of 0.99 and 0.98 respectively. Comparison with the Korotkoff principle in human beings yielded correlation coefficients of 0.96 and 0.78 respectively.