Many aspects of pulse oximeter function may be dysfunctional in people with darker skin, Elizabeth Tracey reports

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Pulse oximeters, vital for measuring how much oxygen is in someone’s blood, don’t work well in people with darker skin, multiple studies have shown. Ashraf Fawzy, a critical care medicine expert at Johns Hopkins, says even the degree to which these devices report aberrant values varies.

Fawzy: Some studies showed that the discrepancy changes throughout the day for the same person, so their skin tone or the skin pigmentation hasn't changed but you may have a discrepancy for one reading but for the next reading there's no discrepancy. And this was much more common in people of black race rather than white race. There's a multifactorial issue going on here and that's why I say it's probably going to take the technological update to really get these devices to be more accurate.   :30

Fawzy says for now, only arterial blood gas measurement will provide correct assessment of blood oxygen levels in people with darker skin. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.