ABSTRACT
In the same way, blood would not flow through the system of hoses in our body that we call the cardiovascular system unless the left side of the heart generated higher pressure than exists near the right side of the heart. Contraction of the left side of the heart creates higher blood pressure in the major arteries than in the right side of the heart, and this difference in pressure is called the 'perfusion pressure' of the systemic circulation. Mean arterial blood pressure is 90-95 mmHg (millimeters of mercury) and the pressure in the right side of the heart is normally no more than 1-2 mmHg. Thus, perfusion pressure of the systemic circulation is roughly the same size as mean arterial blood pressure. Thus, in Equation (1), one can substitute cardiac output for the term 7, mean arterial pressure for the term V and total peripheral resistance (the resistance to flow across all the vessels of the systemic circulation) for the term R, giving another more useful equation:
MABP = CO x TPR (2) where MABP is mean arterial blood pressure, CO is cardiac output, and TPR is total peripheral resistance.
