Detecting Carbon Monoxide
Reported March 2008
BOCA RATON, Fla. (Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Carbon monoxide is an odorless, colorless, and tasteless toxic gas that kills or injures thousands of unsuspecting victims each year. Now, there's a quick, easy, painless way to detect carbon monoxide poisoning and it's already saving lives in hospitals across the country.
Janet Capron was best friends with her mom Jill.
"We talked on the phone every day. She was the best company. She was one of the smartest people I knew," says Capron.
Two years ago, Jill died.
"She kept saying, 'I have some kind of really strange virus.' She was complaining of bad headaches and pain in her chest," says Capron.
There was no heart disease, no diabetes, no cancer -- Jill's blood was poisoned by carbon monoxide from a leak in her condo building.
"She had presented with all the classic symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning and yet, they never tested her," says Capron.
Up to 50 percent of people with carbon monoxide poisoning are misdiagnosed.
"People complain of headaches. They complain of weakness. They complain of dizziness," says Mary Russell, R.N., an emergency room nurse at Boca Raton Community Hospital in Boca Raton, Fla.
Lab blood tests for carbon monoxide poisoning are costly, invasive and often overlooked. But if electrical engineer Mohammed Diab has his way, it won't be missed again. His new device, called the Rad 57, detects carbon monoxide quickly and easily.
"With this device, it is painless, very simple. It gives you the results in seconds," says Mohammed Diab, B.S., an electrical engineer at Masimo Corporation in Irvine, Calif.
It uses multiple wavelengths of light to see through the skin to measure the percentage of carbon monoxide in the blood.
"With the widespread use of this device, a lot of the cases that go unreported would be detected early," says Diab.
It's already in nurse Russell's emergency room.
"We are using it as a triage tool. There is no question, it's life-saving," says Russell.
Janet knows it could have saved her mom.
"If they had tested her for carbon monoxide poisoning, they could have reversed whatever was going on," says Capron.
For now, Janet keeps her mom's memory alive with pictures ... and books. Her mom was writing her fourth novel when she died.
The device is currently being used in about 2,000 hospitals, fire departments and EMS units across the country. Most hospitals should have no problem getting the new detection system -- it only costs about $3,000.
The Optical Society of America contributed to the information contained in the TV portion of this report.
Click here to Go Inside This Science or contact:
Tom McCall
Vice President, Corporate Communications and Global Brand Strategy
Masimo Corporation
Irvine, CA 92618
(949) 297-7075
tmcall@masimo.com
Optical Society of America
Washington, DC 20036-1023
(202) 223-8130
http://www.osa.org
info@osa.org
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