In the fight against Covid-19, oximetry has been one of the essential tools for medical staff and infected people, but new studies raise another problem about it. The oximeter may not work properly in people with darker skin.
According to the US Food and Drug Administration, oximetry has many chances to give wrong results depending on the skin pigment.
This device, which is placed on the patient's finger repeatedly controls the amount of oxygen in the blood, since Covid-19 is a virus that attacks the airways and lungs, it is important to know at all times the oxygen level for him assess the situation of the infected. According to CDC data, people of color, Latinos and Native Americans are 4 times more likely to be treated in hospital compared to others.
This conclusion was reached after a study published in the England Journal of Medicine, where medical professors from the University of Michigan analyzed the data of more than 10,000 patients. After continuous measurements it turned out that in patients with white skin the margin of oximeter error was 3.6% while in those with pigmented skin 11.7%.
Precisely for this reason, experienced experts do not rely solely on oximetry to make an accurate diagnosis or to initiate treatment of the patient.
Source: CNN
