Reliability of Oxygen Tension Measurements on Arterialized Capillary Blood in the Newborn

Abstract

Samples of blood were obtained from newborn infants simultaneously from an umbilical artery catheter, an `arterialized9 heel, an unprepared heel, and from an `arterialized9 thumb. The correlation between the arterial oxygen tension with that of capillary blood, whether arterialized or not, was poor. Thus it was concluded that arterial blood is the only satisfactory sample for the measurement of oxygen tension in the newborn.