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The Ewha Medical Journal
Ewha Womans University School of Medicine

Ewha Med J 1992; 15(3):261-266

pISSN: 1598-7450

DOI: https://doi.org/10.12771/emj.1992.15.3.261

Original Article

Effect of Hypothermia on the Oxygen Saturation Readings with Pulse Oximeter

Rack Kyung Chung, Choon Hi Lee

Copyright ⓒ 1992. Ewha Womans University School of Medicine. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Published Online: Jul 24, 2015

Abstract

Although pulse oximetry is a potentially useful diagnostic tool under anesthesia. there are concerns regarding its reliability for measuring oxygen saturation (SpO2 ; arterial oxygen saturation by pulse oxymeter) in hypothermic or low perfusion states. To test pulse oximeter reliability under hypothermic condition 30 data from 14 patients were collected.

Subjects were divided into group I which was as body temperature>36℃ and group 2 which was body temperature <36℃.

The results were as follows:

1) There were no differences between group I and group 2 in the SaO2(arterial oxygen saturation by blood gas analyzer) and SpO2.

2) The SpO2 in group I was underestimated by 1.20±0.85% than SaO2 in group 1(P<0.001).

3) The SpO2 in group 2 was underestimated by 0.60±1.03% than SaO2 in group 2(p<0.05).

Although the SpO2 was underestimated under hypothermic condition, the pulse oximeter with expired CO2 tension monitor decreased the frequent invasive arterial blood gas analysis. And it was useful tool for the detection of the hypoxia which is most commom cause of preventable anesthesia related death.