Anesthesia progress
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Anesthesia progress · Mar 1988
Pulse oximetry: evaluation of accuracy during outpatient general anesthesia for oral surgery.
Pulse oximetry has been shown to be accurate under steady state conditions. In this study, the accuracy of four pulse oximeters are evaluated and compared during outpatient general anesthesia for third molar extractions. The oximeters evaluated are the Nellcor N-100, the Ohmeda 3700, the Novametrix model 500, and the Bird 4400 portable pulse oximeter. ⋯ The Bird 4400 portable pulse oximeter proved to be the most accurate and reliably predicted arterial saturation under these conditions (y = 1.03x - 2.8, r = 0.85). The Novametrix model 500 pulse oximeter also demonstrated a high degree of accuracy by linear regression analysis, but displayed the lowest correlation coefficient (spread of data points) overall (y = 0.97x + 2.8, r = 0.80.) The Nellcor N-100 pulse oximeter also proved to be highly accurate. (y = 1.05x - 4.1, r = 0.84.) In contrast, regression analysis of the observed saturations obtained with the Ohmeda 3700 pulse oximeter revealed that this unit significantly underestimated arterial saturation (y = 1.20x - 19.6, r = 0.83.)This study demonstrates that despite the rigorous conditions imposed by outpatient general anesthesia for oral surgery, three of the pulse oximeters tested were linearly accurate in predicting arterial oxyhemoglobin saturation over the range of 70-100%. The Ohmeda 3700 was found to significantly underestimate arterial saturation.