Feasibility of cutaneous blood gas monitoring during exercise stress testing

The feasibility of cutaneous blood gas monitoring in connection with exercise testing was evaluated in 113 consecutive patients. Arterial blood samples were taken immediately after exercise. Because of loosening of electrode tapes only 99 satisfactory registrations of O2 and 98 registrations of CO2 were obtained at the end of exercise testing. In this phase the correlations between transcutaneous and arterial O2 and CO2 values were r = 0.60, p less than 0.001 and r = 0.66, p less than 0.001, respectively. Nevertheless, the correspondence for clinical work remains poor. The shape of the whole transcutaneous O2-CO2 registration curve is diagnostically more rewarding than single transcutaneous O2 and CO2 values.