Pulse Oximeter Performance during Rapid Desaturation

• Published in: Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) Vol. 22; no. 11; p. 4236
• Main Authors: Horakova, Lenka, Roubik, Karel
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 02.06.2022; MDPI
• Subjects: Accuracy; Algorithms; Anesthesia; avalanche victim; Biomedical engineering; Carbon dioxide; Clinical medicine; Critical care; Desaturation; Diagnosis; Entrance examinations; Experiments; Humans; Hypercapnia; Hypoxemia; Hypoxia; Hypoxia - diagnosis; Medical research; Methods; Monitoring, Physiologic; Mountain sickness; outdoor experiments; Oximetry; Oxygen; Oxygen saturation; Oxygenation; Parameters; Performance evaluation; Phases; Physiology; Pulse oximetry; Reproducibility of Results; safety limits; Software; Volunteers; Czech Republic; United States > US; Finland; pulse oximetry; hypoxemia; oxygen saturation; safety limits; avalanche victim; outdoor experiments
• ISSN: 1424-8220; 1424-8220
• DOI: 10.3390/s22114236

The reliability of pulse oximetry is crucial, especially in cases of rapid changes in body oxygenation. In order to evaluate the performance of pulse oximeters during rapidly developing short periods of concurrent hypoxemia and hypercapnia, 13 healthy volunteers underwent 3 breathing phases during outdoor experiments (39 phases in total), monitored simultaneously by five different pulse oximeters. A significant incongruity in values displayed by the tested pulse oximeters was observed, even when the accuracy declared by the manufacturers were considered. In 28.2% of breathing phases, the five used devices did not show any congruent values. The longest uninterrupted congruent period formed 74.4% of total recorded time. Moreover, the congruent periods were rarely observed during the critical desaturation phase of the experiment. The time difference between the moments when the first and the last pulse oximeter showed the typical study endpoint values of 85% and 75% was 32.1 ± 23.6 s and 24.7 ± 19.3 s, respectively. These results suggest that might not be a reliable parameter as a study endpoint, or more importantly as a safety limit in outdoor experiments. In the design of future studies, more parameters and continuous clinical assessment should be included.