ANALYSIS OF DIGITAL PULSE-VOLUME RECORDINGS WITH RADIAL AND ULNAR ARTERY COMPRESSION

The vascular noninvasive studies of 289 consecutive cardiac surgery pa tients were reviewed to better understand hand blood-flow physiology i n an older population with vascular disease. The radial artery was fou nd to be more important to pulsatile digital blood flow than the ulnar artery. In more than 20 percent of hands, die thumb and the index and fifth fingers lost pulsatile blood flow with radial artery compressio n at the wrist compared with only 5 percent with ulnar artery compress ion. The maintenance of pulsatile digital blood flow did not follow an atomic patterns of blood vessels previously presumed to be of paramoun t importance. The hand acts more like a single vascular bed than it do es like two separate systems with a connecting arch.