Monitoring of blood oxygen tension during and after anesthesia with a bed-side PO2 meter.

Monitoring of the state of oxygenation of surgical patients during and after anesthesia has been a problem of increasing interest, especially in those cases in which clinical judgment of skin colour alone is unreliable. Therefore a clinical trial is described with a bed-side PO2-measuring device. Results of duplo measurements in arterial blood samples show good correlation with laboratory control values. It is concluded that--if periodically checked by a laboratory apparatus -- the PO2 bed-side analyser could be an useful instrument for semicontinuous monitoring of blood PO2 during anesthesia and in recovery room and intensive care unit.