Comparison the precision of Ear and Finger Pulse Oximetry with Finger Sensor in Patients receiving vasoactive therapy

Today pulse oximetry is widely used for continuous monitoring of oxygen saturation. Although finger pulse oximetry cannot be used in some conditions including burn, blood pressure decline, and restlessness. There are lots of clinical evidence that ear pulse oximetry with finger sensor is utilized in these conditions. Thus, this study aimed to Comparison the precision of ear and finger pulse oximetry with finger pulse oximeter sensor in patients receiving vasoactive therapy.
In an analytical study on 33 patients under Treatment with Vasopressor Drugs, who were selected by convenience sampling based on inclusion criteria, two finger pulse oximeter sensors were connected - one to the top of ear, the other to the fingertip, and arterial blood samples taken simultaneously. Data were analyzed using statistical software SPSS 22 with Spearman correlation test and analysis of variance with repeated measures. The level of significance was considered less than 0.05.
Findings: The findings showed that there was a statistically significant difference between oxygen saturation percentage of the ear, fingertip, and arterial blood (P current study showed that finger and ear pulse oximetry with finger sensor in patients under treatment with vasopressor drugs have similar accuracy for oxygen saturation percentage, although SpO2 of ear is 3% higher in average and SpO2 of fingertip was about 3% lower than SaO2.