As a result, for darker-skinned patients, oxygen saturation readings can read as normal when they are, in fact, dangerously low.
When everyone starting looking at every percentage point of their SpO2 during COVID as if it were life or death, the FDA had to remind people of this:
https://www.fda.gov/news-events/fda-brief/fda-brief-fda-warn...
You would be unable to read an accurate pulse oximeter at 80% because you would have lost consciousness. Doctors have to worry about false negatives just as much as false positives with those things.
There’s a chart somewhere in there on mean sleep so2 by elevation
When everyone starting looking at every percentage point of their SpO2 during COVID as if it were life or death, the FDA had to remind people of this:
https://www.fda.gov/news-events/fda-brief/fda-brief-fda-warn...
You would be unable to read an accurate pulse oximeter at 80% because you would have lost consciousness. Doctors have to worry about false negatives just as much as false positives with those things.