This week was centered on analyzing the data I collected and referring to the papers I found from week six. I analyzed different races and gender. The papers had some interesting and scientific questionable findings. But first, after analyzing some data I noticed a big discrepancy with the Black male compared to the White male and Hispanic female. It was hard to get reasonable data from the black male because there was no significant distance from the trough to peak. And in one of the papers by Yossef Hay, Ohad, et al. To have an accurate result there must be a significant distance from trough to peak and this was represented by AC in the ratio of blood flow formula. So, this raises a lot of questions like what factors could make the result of a person of dark skin have a less accurate result. My hypothesis was that melanin plays a major role in this data collection.
I researched more on my project and acquired a lot of data to compare and deduce something. In my study, I studied research where a group of doctors from Jerusalem College of Technology (JCT) was building a pulse oximeter for babies, and it had several formulas.
Blood Ratio Formula
First, was the ratio of blood flow formula which is basically the distance of the trough to peak divided by the average PPG or lux. Extinction coefficient formula basically involved the Eo of Deoxyhemoglobin and Oxyhemoglobin which I would say had some doubts, path length formula that explained scattered and direct light, a correctional formula that had both and the extinction coefficient and path length merged. The empirical formula had fixed constants from their samples. These formulas were used to design a pulse oximeter. And these are questionable because these commercial pulse oximeters’ do not calculate two very major factors that could affect the readings of how much oxygen is in the hemoglobin. These factors include.
- Melanin affects the how much light is absorbed based on the Melanin Absorption Spectroscopy.
- Thickness of finger because everyone has different sizes of fingers and when light passes through the finger it scatters differently depending on how thick that finger is and this affects the light output.
Now with these factors is there a pulse oximeter that has been invented that measures these important factors before giving out data to its users? I don’t think so! This medical device is scientifically questionable.
