New Published Study Finds Masimo Noninvasive SpCO Effective for Screening Emergency Department Patients for Carbon Monoxide Poisoning

IRVINE, Calif., April 21, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — Masimo (NASDAQ:

MASI) announced today that a new study published in this
month’s issue of the peer-reviewed journal, Annals of Emergency
Medicine, demonstrates that noninvasive Masimo
carboxyhemoglobin (SpCO®) measurements provide an “effective
means for screening at-risk populations for CO poisoning” with
“acceptable bias and precision” compared to invasive blood gas
analysis.  The prospective diagnostic accuracy study is more
than ten times larger than any other published SpCO accuracy study
to date and provides a strong rationale for clinical use of SpCO in
the evaluation of emergency department (ED) patients.(1)

Carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning is a major cause of morbidity and
mortality.  At least 20,000 known exposures(2) and 439
deaths(3) a year are attributed to non-fire-related, unintentional
CO poisoning cases in the U.S.  However, large registry trials
show the prevalence of CO poisoning is far greater with
approximately 50,000 ED visits per year.(4)  Because the
symptoms of CO poisoning are nonspecific—ranging from mild
headache, nausea, confusion, and dizziness to end-organ injury,
such as myocardial infarction, stroke, and death—diagnosis is
difficult and has historically relied on clinical suspicion and
confirmation by measurement of carboxyhemoglobin (COHb) via
invasive blood gas analysis. Unfortunately, it has been estimated
that up to half of U.S. hospitals do not have invasive COHb testing
ability—increasing the potential that many victims of CO
poisoning could be overlooked and misdiagnosed.(5)

The study, conducted over a year-long period in the Department
of Emergency Medicine at one of the largest hospitals in Europe,
the Vienna General Hospital (AKH Vienna), compared the accuracy of
SpCO measured noninvasively using

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