New device could help eliminate racial disparities in hemoglobin and blood oxygen measurements

New device could help eliminate racial disparities in hemoglobin and blood oxygen measurements

A team led by a University of Texas at Arlington bioengineering professor and an Austin businessman have published key findings in the British Medical Journal Innovations that illustrate how a new device more accurately measures hemoglobin in people with darker skin pigments.

George Alexandrakis, professor of bioengineering at UT Arlington, and Dr. Vinoop Daggubati of Shani Biotechnologies LLC conducted a clinical trial at UT Arlington on 16 healthy volunteers and measured their hemoglobin and oxygen levels using the newly developed technology. The team compared the results to those obtained with a commercially available pulse oximeter for accuracy and variability.

Racial disparities in hemoglobin and blood oxygen measurements are a pressing public health problem. Currently available devices are inaccurate on people with dark skin. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a Field Safety Notice and organized an Advisory Committee meeting on November 1, 2022 to discuss this issue in detail.

The UTA team's research results are encouraging, and the new technology has enormous potential to address this unmet clinical need. Alexandrakis said their intention was to develop a wearable device, such as a watch or monitor, that would read the blood through the skin.

Most currently available methods for monitoring hemoglobin require blood samples and expensive equipment. The available non-invasive spectroscopic methods have a high degree of variability and are often inaccurate due to differences in skin melanin in people of color. There is a significant unmet need for a reliable, noninvasive device to estimate hemoglobin regardless of skin color.

Currently available pulse oximeters use red infrared light and are based on technology that was first developed more than 50 years ago. In contrast, the team's device relies on the spectroscopic properties of hemoglobin in the blue-green light spectra.

We used the green-blue light and successfully tested the device in preclinical and clinical studies. Our group has looked at topics related to shorter wavelengths, light scattering and the effects of skin melanin. The scientific community should open up to the concept of green light for these measurements. The Shani device has enormous potential to eliminate these racial disparities.”

Dr. Vinoop Daggubati of Shani Biotechnologies LLC

Source:

University of Texas at Arlington

Reference:

Gokhale, SG, et al. (2022) Innovative technology to eliminate racial bias in non-invasive point-of-care (POC) hemoglobin and pulse oximetry measurements. British Medical Journal Innovations. doi.org/10.1136/bmjinnov-2022-001018.

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