Microspectrophotometric determination of the haemoglobin oxygen saturation in haemolyzed arterialized capillary blood

Abstract

A description is given of a rapid spectrophotometric micromethod of determining the oxygen saturation in arterialized capillary blood. During sampling, the blood was haemolyzed in a glass capillary with the aid of the haemolytic agent Sterox SE. Extinctions were measured at 795 nm and 655 nm in a cuvette made up of slides (d = 1 mm). A single determination is sufficiently exact. Capillary blood from the arterialized earlobe was found to be an adequate substitute for blood from an artery. This method showed good agreement with the haemoreflector method.