Intracranial pulse pressure waveform analysis using the higher harmonics centroid

Background The pulse waveform of intracranial pressure (ICP) is its distinctive feature almost always present in the clinical recordings. In most cases, it changes proportionally to rising ICP, and observation of these changes may be clinically useful. We introduce the higher harmonics centroid (HHC) which can be defined as the center of mass of harmonics of the ICP pulse waveform from the 2nd to 10th, where mass corresponds to amplitudes of these harmonics. We investigate the changes in HHC during ICP monitoring, including isolated episodes of ICP plateau waves. Material and methods Recordings from 325 patients treated between 2002 and 2010 were reviewed. Twenty-six patients with ICP plateau waves were identified. In the first step, the correlation between HHC and ICP was examined for the entire monitoring period. In the second step, the above relation was calculated separately for periods of elevated ICP during plateau wave and the baseline. Results For the values averaged over the whole monitoring period, ICP (22.3 ± 6.9 mm Hg) correlates significantly (R = 0.45, p = 0.022) with HHC (3.64 ± 0.46). During the ICP plateau waves (ICP increased from 20.9 ± 6.0 to 53.7 ± 9.7 mm Hg, p < 10−16), we found a significant decrease in HHC (from 3.65 ± 0.48 to 3.21 ± 0.33, p = 10−5). Conclusions The good correlation between HHC and ICP supports the clinical application of pressure waveform analysis in addition to the recording of ICP number only. Mean ICP may be distorted by a zero drift, but HHC remains immune to this error. Further research is required to test whether a decline in HHC with elevated ICP can be an early warning sign of intracranial hypertension, whether individual breakpoints of correlation between ICP and its centroid are of clinical importance.