traditionally, it has been thought that nail down varnish could absorb the light emitted by the devices, interfere in the detection of the oxygenate hemoglobin, and influence the measurements that are made to ascertain oxygen saturation in the blood, one of the necessity parameters in the clinical assessment of a patient. In order to establish the importance of this determine on the results of pulse oximetry, Sendoa Ballesteros and Irrintzi Fernández, lecturers in nurse at the UPV/EHU, analysed the data on 440 people who participated in 12 clinical trials carried out between January 1999 and February 2014 in the United States, Turkey, Brazil, Thailand, Italy and Germany. These trials were recorded in six of the most important databases in Health Sciences ( Medline, Embase, WOS, Scopus, CINAHL and IBECS ). Of the 440 cases studied, 50 were patients on respiratory digest, 42 had chronic clogging pneumonic disease ( COPD ), and five were healthy individuals who were subjected to a balmy hypoxia pretense ( low oxygen levels ) caused by altitude ( 3,084 thousand ). The remainder were healthy people who volunteered to take separate in the study .
In this review carried out by the team led by Ballesteros and Fernández, there were found to be small differences in the results between the people who had painted nails and those who did not ; in other words, the color of the varnish influenced the statistical results of the measurement, but these variations detected were constantly less than 2 %. They are consequently within the erroneousness margins of the pulsate oximeters used and are of no significance in terms of clinical practice. It was, however, observed that dark colours ( black, brown, blue and purple ) tended to reduce the intensity of the signal and affect the operation of the pulsation oximeter, however no significant statistical differences were obtained between the different colors of the varnish nor in terms of the count of layers of varnish applied.
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In the horizon of Sendoa Ballesteros, following the systematic review carried out on patients subjected to pulse oximetry, “ although the varnish used for painting nails may affect the lineage oxygen impregnation reading, that slight alteration is not clinically relevant, in particular, when modern devices based on high-performance LED and detector engineering are used. therefore, time should not be wasted in an effort to remove the nail polish during an hand brake situation to obtain a valid oximetry measurement. ”