Masimo Corp. (NSDQ:MASI) announced positive results from a study on its carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning screening technology.
The Irvine, Calif.-based company reported that an independent study demonstrated that noninvasive Masimo carboxyhemoglobin (SpCO) measurements provide an "effective means for screening at-risk populations for CO poisoning" with "acceptable bias and precision" compared to invasive blood gas analysis. The results were published in the April issue of Annals of Emergency Medicine.
"The prospective diagnostic accuracy study is more than ten times larger than any other published SpCO accuracy study to date and provides a strong rationale for clinical use of SpCO in the evaluation of emergency department patients," according to the company.
The study was conducted over a year-long period in the Dept. of Emergency Medicine at the Vienna General Hospital and compared the accuracy of SpCO measured noninvasively using the Masimo Radical-7 with COHb measurements obtained via invasive blood gas analysis in 1,578 ED patients.
The symptoms of CO poisoning range from mild headache, nausea, confusion, and dizziness to myocardial infarction and stroke, so diagnosis is difficult and has historically relied on clinical suspicion and measurement of carboxyhemoglobin (COHb) via invasive blood gas analysis, Masimo said.
At least 20,000 known exposures and 439 deaths a year are attributed to non-fire-related, unintentional CO poisoning cases in the U.S., the company reports.
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