Owais Ayoub
Srinagar 17 December (KNB): The oximeters, which is widely used throughout the world to monitor the oxygen level in the Covid19 affected patients, is giving inconsistent results in dark-skinned people, according to the medical journal – The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).
This oxygen monitoring apparatus flashes a number on the screen called oxygen saturation value and makes one understand how much oxygen is in a person’s blood. Whenever the doctors also take a major decision for the patients based on reading turning up on the oximeter’s display.
As per the NEJM, 12 per cent of the time the black person’s oxygen was in safe range on the oximeter while it shows less than 88 per cent saturation of oxygen in arterial blood whereas this discrepancy was 4 per cent of the time in the white patients.
According to the study, the results of oximeters were inconsistent with the samples taken from the person’s blood. The results of patients via oximeters, falling in the normal range, were measured having low oxygen level in their blood samples.
However, during the influx of Covid19 patients from Detroit’s overcrowded hospitals, Dr Michail Sjoding and colleagues at the University of Michigan hospital in Ann Arbor noticed the issue of the odd results from the oximeters used on patients who were black, reads the report of NPR.
The usage of the oximeters has uptick after the covid19 because of the virus’s capability of damaging the lungs and making the paucity of oxygen saturation in one’s body. Well, the oximeter is a tool helping the doctors to get patients’ SPO2 reading during emergency conditions. But, the constant use of it in the homes nowadays where supplemental oxygen generally is not available can put dark-skinned patients at risk owing to the oximeter’s tendency to show readings in safe range. (KNB)
