Pulse oximeters - one of the most common medical devices used in global healthcare - can provide significantly overestimated oxygen saturation readings in people with darker skin tones, according to the most comprehensive study ever to explore the issue.
Published in the British Journal of Anaesthesia, the new study is based on a systematic review of previous research into the use of the devices, and examined 44 studies dating from the mid-1970s to the present day.
In the course of that, researchers assessed more than 733,000 oxygen saturation readings taken from over 222,000 people - including almost 70,000 people of non-white ethnicity.
They found most of the studies revealed evidence of the devices being inclined to overestimate readings in participants with darker skin tones.
While the researchers say it is challenging - based on the current available data - to state the magnitude of those overestimates, they insist it could create a number of issues for both patients and medical professionals.
It could, for example, result in patients not being able to see a doctor as - based on the readings generated by the pulse oximeter - they are deemed to be healthy. And with studies suggesting the errors are exacerbated at lower levels of oxygen saturation, it could result in patients with critical oxygen levels not receiving treatment which they urgently need.
The new study involved experts in intensive care medicine, dermatology and paediatric care from a number of leading universities and hospitals around the UK.
Professor Daniel Martin, Professor of Perioperative and Intensive Care Medicine in the University of Plymouth and a consultant at the University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust (UHP), is the study's lead author.
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