Bruits de Korotkoff

Korotkoff sounds are the sounds that medical personnel listen for when they are taking blood pressure using a non-invasive procedure. They are named after Nikolai Korotkov, a Russian physician who discovered them in 1905, when he was working at the Imperial Medical Academy in St. Petersburg, the Russian Empire. The sounds heard during the measurement of blood pressure are not the same as the heart sounds heard during chest auscultation that are due to vibrations inside the ventricles associated with the snapping shut of the valves. If a stethoscope is placed over the brachial artery in the antecubital fossa in a normal person (without arterial disease), no sound should be audible. As the heart beats, these pulses are transmitted smoothly via laminar (non-turbulent) blood flow throughout the arteries, and no sound is produced. Similarly, if the cuff of a sphygmomanometer is placed around a patient's upper arm and inflated to a pressure above the patient's systolic blood pressure, there will be no sound audible. This is because the pressure in the cuff is high enough such that it completely occludes the blood flow. This is similar to a flexible tube or pipe with fluid in it that is being pinched shut. If the pressure is dropped to a level equal to that of the patient's systolic blood pressure, the first Korotkoff sound will be heard. As the pressure in the cuff is the same as the pressure produced by the heart, some blood will be able to pass through the upper arm when the pressure in the artery rises during systole. This blood flows in spurts as the pressure in the artery rises above the pressure in the cuff and then drops back down beyond the cuffed region, resulting in turbulence that produces an audible sound. As the pressure in the cuff is allowed to fall further, thumping sounds continue to be heard as long as the pressure in the cuff is between the systolic and diastolic pressures, as the arterial pressure keeps on rising above and dropping back below the pressure in the cuff.