CRITICAL OXYGEN SATURATION-LEVEL ESTIMATION FROM PHOTOPLETHYSMOGRAM (PPG): A PRISMA-COMPLIANT SYSTEMATIC REVIEW AND META-ANALYSIS

Abstract

Objectives: Photoplethysmogram (PPG) signals have become a crucial tool in the non-invasive monitoring of oxygen saturation levels (SpO2). The main purpose of the present review is to perform a meta-analysis of the involvement and consideration of critical SpO2 levels (<90%) in the research papers where SpO2 levels are calculated/predicted from PPG and to elaborate on the impact of the critical levels when presenting the evaluation results. Data sources: PubMed, Science Direct, and Scopus were searched for papers published between January 1, 2016, and September 10, 2022. Results: This study produced several results, concerning the main objective as well as other important issues for improving the SpO2 estimation/calculation. We discovered that only 21 out of 75 papers considered SpO2 values that are in the critical domain. Many papers do not provide access to their databases or disclose the software/models used. Additionally, some studies lack sufficient testing subjects and fail to make their results reproducible. The findings reveal a preference for SpO2 calculation over prediction, limited data availability, undisclosed methodologies, and diverse evaluation metrics hinder replication and direct comparisons between studies. Also, a scoring table is offered that scores higher the papers that are more valuable for SpO2 calculation/prediction.Conclusion: Employing PRISMA guidelines, a comprehensive search across PubMed, Science Direct, and Scopus databases initially extracted 6173 potential papers. Following rigorous screening, 75 papers were selected for detailed analysis, of which only 21 included data from critical SpO2 levels. Furthermore, this research provided information for the filtered 21 paper about the sample size of the study participants, the models utilized to derive the results, the availability of databases, the specific devices employed in the research, the methodologies employed for PPG signal measurement, and the collaborative efforts among authors from different institutions. This information is sublimed in the scoring table which gives higher scoring to those papers that are more valuable for SpO2 calculation/prediction. This study offers references to all these findings that can be used as concrete guidelines for prospective researchers and developers of new sensors for SpO2 estimation/calculation utilizing PPG signals.