Elgendi, MohamedFletcher, Richard RibonTomar, HarshitAllen, JohnWard, RababMenon, Carlo2023-04-122023-04-122021-12-01Elgendi M, Fletcher RR, Tomar H, Allen J, Ward R, Menon C. The Striking Need for Age Diverse Pulse Oximeter Databases. Front Med (Lausanne). 2021 Dec 1;8:782422. doi: 10.3389/fmed.2021.782422. PMID: 34926525; PMCID: PMC8671450.2296-858X10.3389/fmed.2021.78242234926525https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14038/51944Introduction: The use of pulse oximetry data has grown significantly in recent years due to new applications of the technology and new wearable sensor platforms, as well as the widespread clinical demands of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The recent letter by Sjoding raising the effect of race (skin color) on pulse oximetry data has recently prompted the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to exercise caution when using and interpreting pulse oximetry readings, with recommendation being given to following the trend in pulse oximeter readings rather than focusing on the absolute value of the readings alone. This finding is now being communicated to the nursing community as well. The database referenced by Sjoding is one of many large pulse oximetry databases that are often used in clinical research to develop and decision support systems. In addition to the oxygen saturation values, there is now an increasing use of the morphological features of the pulse oximetry waveform which are being used, for example, to develop algorithms to predict blood pressure as well as atherosclerosis (5) for use in patient monitoring and disease management. With the increasing use of these publicly available pulse oximetry databases, caution should be taken to prevent creating a bias in the resulting computer algorithms.enCopyright © 2021 Elgendi, Fletcher, Tomar, Allen, Ward and Menon. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.; Attribution 4.0 Internationalhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/PPG signal analysisPPG waveformanesthesiadigital healthelderly populationintensive carephotoplethysmographypulse oximetryJournal ArticleFrontiers in medicine