Evidence map›Paper›PMID 32521167›Full record

ReviewAnnals of the American Thoracic Society2020

Pulse Oximetry for Monitoring Patients with COVID-19 at Home. Potential Pitfalls and Practical Guidance.

Andrew M Luks, Erik R Swenson

Registry-linked trialOpen access · hybridAbstract readReview
PubMed Full text at PMC Publisher
In one paragraph

Review in Annals of the American Thoracic Society, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT05693961 (An Invasive Controlled Desaturation Study to Determine the Accuracy of the CART-I Pulse Oximeter), which is not on this map. Cited by 115 papers, 8 of them syntheses that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
115citing papers in PubMed, 8 pooled it
17.9field-weighted citation impact, top 1% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

NCT05693961 nacompletednot on this mapstarted 2021, after this paper: background citation

An Invasive Controlled Desaturation Study to Determine the Accuracy of the CART-I Pulse Oximeter (Sky Labs Inc., Korea) in Healthy Adult Volunteers

TypeinterventionalSponsorSky LabsRan2021 to 2021Enrolled13ConditionsHealthyArmsCART-I plus
3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

115 citing papers in PubMed, 8 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 268 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Singapore First Aid Guidelines 2026.Singapore medical journal · 2026
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55 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.

Andrew M LuksDivision of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington; and.
Erik R SwensonDivision of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington; and.
University of Washington · US

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

During the ongoing coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, reports in social media and the lay press indicate that a subset of patients are presenting with severe hypoxemia in the absence of dyspnea, a problem unofficially referred to as "silent hypoxemia." To decrease the risk of complications in such patients, one proposed solution has been to have those diagnosed with COVID-19 but not sick enough to warrant admission monitor their arterial oxygenation by pulse oximetry at home and present for care when they show evidence of hypoxemia. Though the ease of use and low cost of pulse oximetry makes this an attractive option for identifying problems at an early stage, there are important considerations with pulse oximetry about which patients and providers may not be aware that can interfere with successful implementation of such monitoring programs. Only a few independent studies have examined the performance of pocket oximeters and smart phone-based systems, but the limited available data raise questions about their accuracy, particularly as saturation falls below 90%. There are also multiple sources of error in pulse oximetry that must be accounted for, including rapid fluctuations in measurements when the arterial oxygen pressure/tension falls on the steep portion of the dissociation curve, data acquisition problems when pulsatile blood flow is diminished, accuracy in the setting of severe hypoxemia, dyshemoglobinemias, and other problems. Recognition of these issues and careful counseling of patients about the proper means for measuring their oxygen saturation and when to seek assistance can help ensure successful implementation of needed monitoring programs.

Indexed as

PandemicsPractice Guidelines as TopicBetacoronavirusCoronavirus InfectionsCOVID-19Home Care ServicesHumansMonitoring, PhysiologicOximetryPneumonia, ViralSARS-CoV-2COVID-19hypoxemiaoxygen saturationpulse oximetry

Identifiers

PMID32521167
PMCPMC7462317
OpenAlexW3033446455

What OpenQuestion holds

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LicenceCC BY-NC-ND
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.