Abstract
A review of the literature of aortic elasticity data leads to the conclusion that the pressure-volume curves of the human aorta can be reasonably well approximated by parabolas, while a straight line approximation proves inadequate. By using the above relationship and assuming flow through the peripheral vascular system to be directly proportional to the pressure difference across it, two equations are derived which relate systolic and diastolic blood pressures, cardiac output, pulse rate, peripheral resistance, and two constants of aortic elasticity. Pulsewave transmission phenomena are ignored. These two equations can be solved simultaneously for any two variables in terms of the others. When values computed from these equations are compared with experiment, the errors are usually less than 5 per cent, provided errors due to inaccurate measurements of the aortic elasticity constants are avoided.
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Cope, F.W. An Elastic reservoir theory of the human systemic arterial system using current data on aortic elasticity. Bulletin of Mathematical Biophysics 22, 19–40 (1960). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02477969
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02477969