Noninvasive oximetry in pigmented patients.

Abstract

Noninvasive oximetry has been shown to be a reliable and convenient way of estimating arterial oxygen saturation. Studies have shown that skin pigmentation did not affect the accuracy of oximetry. However, these studies were performed on healthy subjects and the number studied was small. Our study on 31 pigmented patients in the clinical situation showed that the Biox III oximeter gave readings that closely approximated oxygen saturation measurements from arterial blood (y = 4.75 + 0.93x, r = 0.91, p less than 0.001), confirming the usefulness of noninvasive oximetry even in pigmented patients.