Contact lens pulse oximetry: A valid concept?
Scott VA., Tarassenko L., Glynn CJ., Hill AR.
A contact lens probe has been developed to enable reflectance pulse oximetry measurements to be made on the blood in the retinal fundus. An incoherent, trifurcated fiber optic bundle guides the light to and from the eye and is coupled to a haptic contact lens. This enables the incident and reflected light paths to be coaxial and allows all electrical connections to be remote from the subject and the weight on the eye to be minimized. Although contact lens pulse oximetry has certain limitations, the technology to develop a compact imaging system which could perform oximetry on the blood in the retinal fundus is already available. Individual vessels could be segmented from the images to determine blood oxygen saturation in either arteries or veins.