ArticlePloS one2025
Validity of pulse oximetry measures for heart rate and oxygen saturation during profound hypoxia in normobaric simulated extreme altitudes.
Article in PloS one, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
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.
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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Agreement and Accuracy of a Commercial Pulse Oximeter Compared with Arterial Oxygen Saturation During Controlled Hypoxemia in Healthy Volunteers.Medical devices (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
introductionCommercial pulse oximeters may not be well calibrated for oxygen saturations below 70%, conditions that may be met in high altitude aviation and mountaineering. We therefore examined the bias and variability of heart rate (HR) and blood oxygen saturation (SpO2) of four different pulse oximeters (PO) at arterial blood oxygen saturation (SaO2) between 55 and 100%.
methodsSeventeen healthy participants (age 33 ± 11 (mean ± standard deviation (SD)) yr) were exposed to controlled desaturation at rest by stepwise reduction of the oxygen fraction in the breathing air between 20.9 and 8%. Parallel measurements of HR (n = 383) and blood oxygen saturation (n = 304) from four pulse oximeters (RAD-97, PM100N, M7500 and Nell1-SR) and from reference instruments (by hemoximetry and electrocardiography (ECG)) were taken during the exposure. The validity was assessed in intervals of 55-70%, 70-85% and 85-100% SaO2 using the Bland-Altman method (bias and 95% limits of agreement (LoA)) and the root mean square error for variability. The demarcation criteria for agreement between methods were ±6 percentage points O2Hb saturation and ±6 bpm HR.
resultsAt the 85-100% SaO2 interval, all POs but the Nell1-SR were in agreement with the reference for O2 saturation. Only M7500 agreed with the reference for the 70-85% interval and none of the POs were in agreement with the reference for the 55-70% interval. The pulse oximeters and ECG were not in agreement for HR at neither the 55-70% nor the 85-100% interval but agreed at the 70-85% interval except the RAD-97. All pulse oximeters increased the bias or the variability for SpO2 significantly by reductions in oxygen saturation, while no systematic differences were found for HR.
conclusionThe study shows that medically approved pulse oximeters are not in agreement with reference measurements of neither blood oxygen saturation nor HR at SaO2 levels below 70%, and their readings should therefore be interpreted cautiously during severe desaturation.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.