Scientists are looking for solutions after studies showed pulse oximeters don’t work well on people of color

Before the pandemic, the majority of Valley patients at Michigan Medicine were white. But as the hospital treated more Covid-19 patients, Valley realized that many black or brown patients were coming from other overburdened facilities.

“At 92%, we don’t usually make clinical changes based on that, but if that 92% on the pulse oximeter means their oxygen levels are below 88%, well, that’s something I’m going to make a clinical change on — whether it comes to starting Someone is on oxygen, or whether that increases oxygen values,” Valley said.

“I still struggle with what I do when I have a black patient who has a marginal value of the pulse oximeter,” he said. “I think for the individual at home, I think it increases the need to take your symptoms into account.”

‘Consequences of neglect… revealed’

But only recently has the public become more aware of this health disparity, and US health officials have announced plans to investigate the accuracy of pulse oximeters.

“It’s a problem,” Vale said.

“There was a study just like ours in 1990, but on a smaller scale in one center. The problem from 1990 to 2020 is really a publishing and education problem. In medical school, in residency, in fellowship, I didn’t know about this problem” . “It’s not that we use the pulse oximeter very often. I use the pulse oximeter every day, several times a day, all day in the ICU, and that hasn’t changed in 10 years. It’s like my right hand in the ICU. We rely on A person’s oxygen levels.

Some experts see the pandemic shedding more light on the limitations of pulse oximetry in measuring oxygen levels among black and brown patients.

“People knew there was a problem with overestimating these oxygen saturation levels, especially in dark-skinned patients, but they didn’t appreciate the importance of this problem until the COVID-19 pandemic,” she said. “The pandemic has seen increased use of pulse oximetry in hospital and at home, and thus the consequences of neglecting issues with pulse oximeter errors have been revealed.”

Jakachira and its researcher Kimani Tosan argue that in the years since Oyagi’s invention, not enough clinical testing has been done to advise optimizing the device to ensure equality of all demographics and skin tone.

“Therefore, one thing that needs to be done right away is improved titration testing,” Jakashira said, adding that currently, guidelines from the FDA recommend such testing on a pulse oximeter on at least 10 healthy subjects that differ In age and gender with a range of skin pigmentations, of which two or 15% of the group—”whichever is greater” FDA guidelines indicate—have darker skin.

“This may not be enough and not to draw statistical conclusions about the disparities,” she said. “So, with a more diverse group, calibration would be a great first step.”

future pulse oximetry

said Toussaint, professor and senior associate dean in Brown University’s School of Engineering.

When a pulse oximeter sends beams of light through the fingertips to measure oxygen levels in the blood, they measure how much oxygen a certain molecule in the blood called hemoglobin has absorbed. It turns out that both melanin and hemoglobin absorb light at similar wavelengths, separating their relative contributions can be challenging. Melanin is the substance that produces pigmentation in the skin, hair and eyes.

“So, the melanin will interfere with the absorption properties of hemoglobin in your blood,” Toussaint said, which could lead to defective blood pulse oximeter readings, because different people have different amounts of melanin.

The approach that Jakashira and Toussaint take in their search for a solution is to try to cancel out the effect that absorbed melanin can have on how the pulse oximeter measures oxygen levels in the blood.

“This is something that we think will certainly be a contribution but perhaps can be translated into other similar technologies which are not just pulse oximetry,” Toussaint said, adding that he could not share additional details on this work as the research team is currently completing the patent application.

FDA advisors debate the accuracy of pulse oximetry

A patient’s oxygen levels are sometimes called the “fifth vital sign,” and there is growing concern about how such investigations into how pulse oximetry inaccuracies may occur among people of color sooner, according to an editorial published Monday in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine.

“While the technical limitations of pulse oximetry have been recognized for more than 30 years, investigations into the clinical effects of occult hypoxia in dark-skinned patients have been relatively recent (and worrisome),” Dr. Eric Ward of the University of California, San Francisco and Dr. Mitchell Katz of the University of California, San Francisco and Dr. Mitchell Katz of Hospital + New York Health wrote in their editorial.

They described one action plan for change.

Ward and Katz wrote, “There are devices that function more fairly, but they have never been widely distributed.” “Healthcare systems, including academic centers, are large-scale buyers of pulse oximeters. If they stick to buying devices that only work across skin tones, manufacturers will respond.”