BACKGROUND The benefits of long-term oxygen supplementation in COPD patients with hypoxemia are well established. The standard approach to prescribing oxygen uses a static assessment of oxygen requirements in a hospital or clinic setting. The assumption behind this approach is that patients will maintain a "therapeutic" hemoglobin oxygen saturation (SpO2) in the outpatient setting. We questione...

OBJECTIVE High incidence, rising admission rates, and relatively ineffective therapies make the management of bronchiolitis controversial. Since 1980, the rate of hospitalization for children with bronchiolitis has increased by nearly 250%, whereas mortality rates for the disease have remained constant. It has been speculated that the increasing use of pulse oximetry has lowered the threshold f...

STUDY OBJECTIVE To determine whether a reservoir nasal cannula (RNC) (Oxymizer) provides an arterial hemoglobin oxygen saturation as measured by pulse oximetry (SpO2) equivalent to that provided by the standard nasal cannula (SNC) during sleep in hypoxemic patients with COPD while reducing oxygen flow requirement and cost. DESIGN The study took place in a sleep laboratory for three nights, wi...

Midazolam was used for anaesthesia in 20 patients undergoing cardioversion; 10 received flumazenil, which caused immediate rapid reversal of anaesthesia, and these patients maintained SpO2 greater than 95%, breathing air, within 5-10 min. In contrast, patients in the placebo group were still partially sedated and required oxygen therapy for up to 2 h to maintain a normal SpO2. Arterial pressure...

The normal presentation of a patient with a drug induced methemoglobinemia is a low pulse oximetry (SpO2) reading, usually in the mid 80% range, while having a very high PaO2 on an arterial blood gas (ABG)1. We present a case where the initial ABG showed a very high PaO2 and a metabolic alkalosis while the SpO2 fluctuated (85% 99%). Those findings combined with hemodynamic instability complicat...

We report a patient who was suspected of transfusion-related acute lung injury. A 60-year-old man underwent emergency thoracotomy and hemostasis after pneumonectomy. The SpO2, decreased abruptly to 66% 90 minutes after transfusion of packed red blood cells and fresh frozen plasma. He was ventilated with 100% oxygen. The SPO2 returned to 100% in 3 minutes. Postoperative chest radiography showed ...

Background: Congenital heart diseases, which are asymptomatic at birth, are the most important causes of infant mortality. This study aimed to evaluate the role of pulse oximetry in the early detection of congenital heart diseases among newborns.Methods: In this cross-sectional descriptive study, 1230 newborns who were born in university hospitals in an urban area of Iran were placed unde...

BACKGROUND Cognitive impairment is one of the main consequences of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and is usually attributed in part to the oxidative stress caused by intermittent hypoxia in cerebral tissues. The presence of oxygen-reactive species in the brain tissue should be produced by the deoxygenation-reoxygenation cycles which occur at tissue level during recurrent apneic events. However, ...

Background and Aims One potential complication of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is reduced dynamic compliance, saturation for peripheral oxygenation (SpO2) and increased sputum in patients that are mechanically ventilated. Airway clearance technique is the treatment given for patients on mechanically ventilator with ARDS. The purpose of the case series is to know the immediate effe...