New Study Funded By the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Finds Masimo SpCO(R) May Provide a Noninvasive Measure of Acute Asthma Severity i...( Study Presented at the Pediatric Acad...)

Study Presented at the Pediatric Academic Societies Annual Meeting by Vanderbilt University Researchers Shows a Statistically-Significant Association between SpCO and Measures of Lung Function

IRVINE, Calif., May 13 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Masimo (Nasdaq: MASI), the inventor of Pulse CO-Oximetry(TM) and Measure-Through Motion and Low-Perfusion pulse oximetry, announced today that a new clinical study conducted in the Emergency Department at Vanderbilt Children's Hospital shows that the noninvasive measurement of carbon monoxide in the blood with Masimo Rainbow SET(R) Pulse CO-Oximetry (SpCO) may help clinicians better assess acute asthma severity during and after treatment. The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and presented at the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) Annual Meeting on May 5, 2009.(1)

Asthma is a life-threatening inflammatory disease of the airways that affects more than 6 million children in the U.S., leading to more pediatric hospitalizations than any other cause.(2) However, a common challenge for children with asthma is the requirement of a forced expiratory test called spirometry. In contrast to spirometry, SpCO--a noninvasive measurement easily obtained from Masimo Rainbow SET Pulse CO-Oximeters and sensors already used in many hospitals--does not require patient instruction or breathing effort. As a result, SpCO may help to improve the assessment of asthma severity and response to treatment in young children and patients who are unconscious, heavily sedated, unable to understand and follow instructions, or have limitations that would interfere with vigorous respiratory efforts.

"We have limited measures to assess severity of acute asthma exacerbations and the finding of an association between carboxyhemoglobin (SpCO) by multi-wavele
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