Chronic exercise-induced compartment pressure elevation measured with a miniaturized fluid pressure monitor. A laboratory and clinical study.

Increased pressure within an osteofascial compartment may produce a compartment syndrome, one of the principal causes of circulatory compromise in acute traumatic and chronic exercise-induced elevated compartment pressure. Acute and chronic diagnostic quantitation of compartment pressures are a valuable adjunct to clinical diagnosis, particularly when used to evaluate the athlete with exercise-induced pain. This study evaluated a prototype hand-held, digital, fluid pressure monitor used for the measurement of compartment pressure in the exercising athlete. A laboratory water and mercury manometer study, in which 50 paired, single-blind measurements were taken, revealed that the digital monitor was accurate to +/- 0.8 mm Hg (SD) of actual pressure with no individual reading more than 1 mm Hg from the actual pressure when compared directly with a mercury and a water column. Laboratory study of bovine muscle placed within a pressure chamber revealed that the digital monitor, when assembled in the same manner as used for clinical measurement, was accurate to +/- 0.9 mm Hg. The needle manometer technique was also found to be accurate to +/- 3 mm Hg from actual pressure. Twenty-one paired measurements of the anterolateral and posterior compartments of the hindlimbs of eight anesthetized New Zealand White rabbits by both the needle manometer and digital monitor methods by two examiners demonstrated the digital monitor to be reproducible to +/- 1.0 mm Hg [Coefficient of variation (CV) less than 7%] and needle manometer method to +/- 3.4 mm Hg (CV less than 16%) with r = 0.94.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)