Blood Readers Can Finally Work Without ‘Discriminating’ Against People Of Color

The University of Texas at Arlington has devised a new way to measure the blood in patients of color without letting melanin in their skin affect results.
 
Previously, when hemoglobin was measured through pulse oximeters, the results often resulted in an error or undetected low blood oxygen readings. According to the Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation, Black people have been three times more likely to be affected by the discrepancies.
 
Part of the reason for this is that traditional blood readers use red-infrared light based on technology from 50 years ago—a lifetime ago in the medical world. At long last, on November 1, the US Food and Drug Administration issued a safety communication meeting to address the problem.

Back to the study, the team found that replacing the red-infrared with blue-green light spectra can better highlight the spectroscopic properties of hemoglobin.

George Alexandrakis, a UT Arlington bioengineering professor; and Dr Vinoop Daggubati of Shani Biotechnologies LLC; rounded up a group of 16 healthy volunteers to test their new technology out. The study was first published in the British Medical Journal. 

 
From the experiment conducted on the volunteers, the team found highly encouraging results with the new device. Alexandrakis notes that they hope to create a wearable that can read blood through the skin.
 
 
 
[via Technology Org and The University of Texas at Arlington, cover photo 49555931 © Kts | Dreamstime.com]