Masimo (NSDQ:MASI) yesterday released data from a study comparing the company’s Masimo acoustic respiration rate with its Radical-7 Pulse co-oximeter against Medtronic‘s (NYSE:MDT) Nellcor plethysmographic respiration rate, touting faster detection of respiratory pauses with the Masimo tech.
The study, performed at the Tokyo Women’s Medical University, investigated the use of the 2 technologies on 50 adult study volunteers. Respiration rate, pulse rate and oxygen saturation values were measured using the 2 technologies.
Both devices were configured to alarm in the event of a respiratory pause or slow respiration rate for 30 seconds, respiration rate under 10 breaths per minute and an SpO2 level of 90% or below, Masimo said.
In the study, volunteers were instructed to breathe at a rate of 12 breathes per minute for 3 minutes, then hold their breath until the alarms were triggered. A smaller group of 10 volunteers performed the same procedure with respiratory pause and low respiration rate alarms set to 15 seconds.
Results indicated that the Masimo system alarmed 114 times out of 143 procedures, while the Nellcor’s alarm only alerted 15 times. Average time to alarm for the Masimo device was 35 second, versus 59 seconds with the Nellcor. Nellcor alarms were most commonly triggered by SpO2 being below 90%, while Masimo alarms were caused by respiration rate falling below 10 breaths per minute.
Of the smaller subgroup which suspended breathing for 15 seconds, the Masimo device alarmed 29 times with an average response time of 21 seconds, while the Nellcor device’s alarm did not go off, Masimo said in a press release.
Researchers touted the Masimo acoustic respiration rate as providing faster detection of respiratory pause, but cautioned that the results should be limited as the study was focused on volunteers who maintained fixed breathing before abruptly holding it, leaving the results more difficult to generalize to a hospital patient population.
Last month, Masimo said it won CE Mark approval in the European Union for its RPVi, a multi-wavelength version of the currently available Pleth Variability Index designed to provide enhanced specificity to changes in fluid volume compared to PVi.