Commentary: Using Impedance Cardiography to Detect Asymptomatic Cardiovascular Disease in Prehypertensive Adults with Risk Factors

Clinical Use of Impedance Cardiography for Hemodynamic Assessment of Early Cardiovascular Disease and Management of Hypertension

This article is for clinicians considering impedance cardiography (ICG) for secondary prevention. ICG is an inexpensive noninvasive technology that can be used to assess hemodynamic function of the central cardiovascular system. Diverse abnormalities of ventricular function, systolic and diastolic, can be detected by ICG. Additional data pertaining to decompensation can be obtained by taking ICG readings with the patient performing postural change, from upright to supine, to quantify the compensatory response. Vascular load consists of resistive and pulsatile loads. Systemic vascular resistance can provide a measure of resistive load. Pulsatile load has two components: arterial stiffness and wave reflection. ICG can be used to calculate arterial compliance and detect aortic wave reflection. For stage 1 hypertension, a significant issue is whether a treating clinician should add pharmacotherapy to lifestyle modification. Adults who have multiple cardiovascular risk factors with stage 1 hypertension have early cardiovascular disease. ICG can be used to identify the functional abnormalities associated with the cardiovascular disease. For the management of hypertension, ICG can be used to calculate the underlying hemodynamic parameters of cardiac index and systemic vascular resistance associated with a patient's blood pressure. There can be wide ranges for cardiac index and systemic vascular resistance, with many patients having low cardiac index with high systemic vascular resistance or vice versa. These hemodynamic data can be used to customize pharmacotherapy. Drug titration can be guided by patient response to treatment using the initial hemodynamic data as a baseline for comparison to subsequent measurements from serial office visits.