Talk:Pulse oximetry

Not sure if this is the correct way to comment here, but wanted to point out that the "correct position" photo (blue remote pulse oximetry sensor on patient finger tip) appears to be incorrect. Typically the lead wire is on the same side as the red/IR LEDs, which should be placed on TOP of the patient's finger tip above the fingernail. This link ^[1] to the manufacturer documentation for a Masimo pulse oximter with remote sensor shows the correct positioning on page 1-5. This positioning is also evidenced in the topmost photo of the setup used for sleep monitoring (wrist oximeter with remote sensor). (I'm an RN and use pulse oximeters every day). - DawL VuDu DawL (talk) 22:55, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

I second the comment above. The picture is incorrect. In all probes, when the probe is correctly positioned, the lead wire is on the nail side of the finger, running across the back of the hand (not the palm). Most probes have a fingernail impression in the sensor's plastic housing to show which side goes on the fingernail side of the finger. The photo with the blue sensor depicts incorrect placement. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Carol4929 (talk • contribs) 15:02, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

I don't know the term for hardware, but I know for software they call it "vaporware" when something is announced and then never becomes a real product. I am tempted to delete the information about oximeters for nintendo Wii video game console because it was announced in 2009 and here we are in 2015 and it never happened.— Preceding unsigned comment added by DevRockinAZ (talk • contribs) 11:04, 24 July 2015‎ (UTC)

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Does the p in SpO2 really stand for peripheral? I would have guessed it stood for 'pulse oximeter'. I would assume SaO2 is typically measured (or at least calculated) from peripheral arterial blood on ABGs, which makes the "peripheral" designation of SpO2 curious. Maybe this term is from the old 1970s non-"pulse" oximeters that worked on fingers in an attempt to estimate the SaO2. Mauvila (talk) 03:19, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

Article Location:
Section: Function
Paragraph excerpt: "By subtracting the minimum transmitted light from the peak transmitted light in each wavelength, the effects of other tissues are corrected for.[43]"

Reference "[43]" = ""Pulse Oximetry". Oximetry.org. 2002-09-10. Archived from the original on 2015-03-18. Retrieved 2015-04-02."

Does not explain why more than one frequency is required.
Does not explain that if only one frequency were available, which would be the preferable for obtaining the same data, or it is not possible to even guess a conclusion with only one frequency.
Does not explain history on how both frequencies were chosen.
Does not explain the reasoning behind the relationship of Red and Infrared frequencies.

Gedium (talk) 07:34, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

Lack of citation in 3.1 Advantages. " Portable pulse oximeters are also useful for mountain climbers and athletes whose oxygen levels may decrease at high altitudes or with exercise. Some portable pulse oximeters employ software that charts a patient's blood oxygen and pulse, serving as a reminder to check blood oxygen levels." wizbang_fl 04:30, 18 September 2020 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jatibi (talk • contribs) 04:30, 18 September 2020 UTC (UTC)

Does it genuinely need a cite? I think this falls into the realm of 'the sky is blue'. Anastrophe (talk) 06:58, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

A claim from bostonreview.net has been added that Pulse oximeters may contribute to "systemic racism" because of errors induced by skin color. Bostonreview.net labels itself as 'political and literary forum'. I question whether this is a reliable source for a science/medical article. The source appears to be an opinion piece, synthesizing a claim that isn't patent in its own sources. Pulse oximeters demonstrate a color bias, not a racist bias. It strikes me as a highly dubious bit of political theater being introduced into an otherwise well documented article. Do pulse oximeters potentially produce erroneous results for people with 'non-white' skin color? Probably so. That's a technical issue that needs to be fixed, not a political issue. It becomes a political issue only if we force that value judgement onto device that has no political bias itself. The best that might be said is that the scientists who created pulse oximeters failed to take into account skin color. That's a "duh" and an "oops", not evidence of white supremacy or whatever we choose to characterize it.

Yes, this is a rant. Politicizing a benign device that has a shortcoming - serious, as the case can be made - isn't helpful. It's a technical issue that can be addressed by application of technical fixes. No more, no less. Anastrophe (talk) 20:46, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

So... despite hedging about the source (written by a professor of anthropology at MIT, by the way, and we can of course add content and citations from the medical journal articles she linked to) you're acknowledging that there's a problem with pulse oximeter devices measuring the SpO₂ of people with darker skin, a problem which based on the dates in this article has existed for at least half a century, but you want to make sure this article doesn't mention any of the broader consequences of that? Or you want to make sure that those consequences aren't explicitly connected to any kind of racism in the text of the article? What are you asking for with your self-described rant?

Even if this article were about pulse oximeter devices specifically—which it's not, it's about the method of pulse oximetry in general—and even if there were some Wikipedia policy or guideline saying non-medical aspects of a topic should be segregated from articles——which there isn't, in fact the WP:PSGMED intro guide to writing medical articles suggests a "Society and culture" section for most subtypes of articles, including medical device articles btw—racism is a technical aspect of medicine: for example its MeSH code is D063505.

What you're proposing is something like saying the article on PTSD should not mention veterans, because veterans' issues is a political subject rather than a technical or medical subject. Consider that editors having a reaction like this to the mention of racism, and acting on an urge to put something about their reaction down in writing right away, is the reason why there's enough secondary sourcing for Wikipedia to have a racial bias on Wikipedia article. Or that this kind of thing is one reason why, as the Boston Review article points out, we're in the middle of a respiratory disease pandemic where the death rates of people with darker skin are much higher than the death rate of whites, to the tune of tens of thousands of deaths in the U.S. alone.

"Oops," as you say. But let's not sully the good reputation of a "benign device," that's what's really important here, and let's avoid documenting any involvement with anything that might "force [a] value judgement", Heaven forfend. It's interesting that you equate systemic racism—the phenomenon that this kind of "oops" happens again and again and again in all sectors of society and, if redressed at all, is redressed with a half-century-plus lag time or in some other less urgent or thorough manner than other problems—as being identical to white supremacy "or whatever," but that's all you.

Look, if it makes you feel more coolly technical and apolitical, think of it the way that in the twentieth century engineers were dragged kicking and screaming into accepting that things like risk management and system dynamics and reliability analysis are essential to design. Racism is the Tacoma Narrows Bridge of medical device engineering in the twenty-first century. Except that unfortunately, whereas no one died when the bridge shook itself apart, systemic racism causes death and suffering on a vast scale. --▸₷truthious Ⓑandersnatch◂ 01:09, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

Clearly, I must yield the crown for rants.

The devices may have a bias in readings affected by skin color. Ascribing it to race is nonsense. Asians are a different race from Northern Europeans, yet very large populations of Asians have skin color indistinguishable from "white" people. If there is a racial bias, then PulseOx for Asians would show the same errors, which clearly is nonsensical. Skin Color "bias" is not Racial bias, not when we're talking about a medical device. I haven't read the source studies, but I'd be curious if they bothered to check the results for heavily tanned Scandinavians. I'd bet that they'd show the same errors. Would we attribute that to racism?

I have not suggested that this problem should not be addressed. It certainly should. Wikipedia isn't prescriptive. We report what experts have found, we don't interpret the results.

There's so much hyperbole, conflation, and ascribing of motive in the response that I can't begin to respond to it - nor will I. It's just baiting, which is uncivil and unhelpful.

"Research has shown that error rates in common pulse oximeter devices may be higher for people with dark skin color." That's all that needs to be said, along with proper sourcing to the studies themselves. The rest is supposition. Anastrophe (talk) 02:00, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

I think you are not understanding the Boston Review article, nor the sentence I added to this Wikipedia article, if you think that the claim being made here is that a pulse oximeter somehow detects race and would distinguish Asians and white people with the same skin tone.

I'm not sure what you feel you're being baited into doing if it's things like me providing you with the MeSH ID for looking up open-access full-text medical journal articles about racism on PubMed Central that you regard as a baiting maneuver you "can't begin to respond to." If you haven't read any of the further sources on the matter how do you know you can declare as "supposition" and remove the statement, sourced to the Boston Review article, that higher error rates in pulse oximetry for people with dark skin raises concerns about compounding systemic racism?

Sure, maybe all the other verifiable, reliable sources out there are saying that medical devices which produce higher error rates for black people can raise no concerns whatsoever when it comes to the extremely-well-documented racial disparities in medical outcomes in the U.S. health care system and elsewhere. But if you don't look for any other sources and instead pick the one fact you personally find acceptable out of a source written by an MIT anthropology professor that talks about racism in its entirety, that is the complete diametric opposite of "We report what experts have found, we don't interpret the results." Not only are you heavily interpreting the Boston Review article to throw away everything about racism in it on your own cognizance, you are doing so by forming your own assumptions about what you will find in other sources and saying you'd bet you already know what they say. --▸₷truthious Ⓑandersnatch◂ 03:54, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

The word "you" or "you're" or "your" appears twenty times in your comment. Please focus on content, not the editor.. The assumptions made about what I may or may not think are overbearing and uncivil. I raised my concern above. Please note that I didn't simply revert the edit, as I felt that discussion would be helpful. I look forward to other editors participating, hopefully in less confrontational and more collegial manner. Anastrophe (talk) 07:39, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

It's almost like you're trying to characterize my comments and edits, use passive voice to say content "has been added" which is "political theater" that "force[s] that value judgement" (about racism which, again, is a thoroughly-documented topic in medical science and many other disciplines, not an airy abstract philosophical notion or something from the outskirts of political theory) as though you can't just check who wrote it so you didn't know, and call what I'm saying here a rant and hyperbole and conflation and baiting that you're simply above responding to at all, while claiming I mustn't characterize your own comments at all. Nah, it's a bit too late to take the high road. Is it quantitatively focusing on another's editor's comments which is supposed to suddenly be all that's okay now, starting with this last comment? So coolly technical and sang-froid, the word counts. Maybe you can compute a Flesch–Kincaid readability score for what I've said above next.

Coming back to this after a week I see that your "focus on content" and supposedly-helpful discussion has still not resulted in you doing any research to contribute cited edits to the article or address my points about pulse oximetry and its relationship to national medical systems here. So go ahead and continue with whatever it is you're doing in this talk page but I'm going to go do research and write encyclopedia content. --▸₷truthious Ⓑandersnatch◂ 00:33, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

Your behavior continues to be uncivil and engaging in hostile personal attacks. Please read or re-read WP:CIVIL. I haven't responded in kind, and I would ask you to please stop making personal attacks. Civility is a core value of Wikipedia. I'm not obligated to accept this behavior, and continuing to engage would be tacit acceptance. Peace be upon you. Anastrophe (talk) 01:57, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia now says:

"Research has suggested that error rates in common pulse oximeter devices may be higher for adults with dark skin color, leading to claims of encoding systemic racism in countries with multi-racial populations such as the United States".

If this is racism, why black scientists haven't created any solution to this?

91.159.184.121 (talk) 08:42, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 28 August 2023 and 13 December 2023. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Rheatandon (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Wu ib (talk) 18:48, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

I’m curious why in the history section no mention is made of HP’s pulse oximeters which were quite common (if not dominant and the “gold standard” for comparison in the 70s and 80s). There were other mfrs, too.

Specifically, the HP 47201A, described here: ^[1]

If you go out to PubMed, you’ll find plenty of articles comparing the accuracy of various PulseOxes, and the HP is almost always in there. ^[2] West, et al., “Dynamic in vivo response characteristics of three oximeters: Hewlett-Packard 47201A, Biox III, and Nellcor N-100” doi:%2010.1093/sleep/10.3.263

Seems like this article was sort of crafted from a recent summary somewhere else.

W6rmk (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 23:37, 26 December 2023 (UTC)