Masimo Rad-G Helps Clinicians Identify Pediatric Pneumonia in Large Field Trial in India

Masimo (NASDAQ: MASI) today announced the findings of a study published in Clinical Medicine Insights: Pediatrics in which Dr. Harish Kumar and colleagues at IPE Global in New Delhi, India reported on their experience using the Masimo Rad-G Pulse Oximeter to aid health providers in pneumonia case detection and management in more than 4,500 children under five years who presented with symptoms of acute respiratory infection (ARI). Rad-G is a rugged, portable, handheld Masimo SET Measure-through Motion and Low Perfusion pulse oximeter and noninvasive respiration rate monitor from the pleth (RRp). The researchers found that Rad-G was “highly acceptable among health workers” and aided the “timely classification and treatment” of pneumonia—helping them achieve correct case management in more than 91% of cases of ARI and reduce the unnecessary use of antibiotics.¹

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Masimo Rad-G (Graphic: Business Wire)

Study author Dr. Kumar commented, “Our decision to choose Rad-G as our pulse oximeter of choice to aid HWCs in pneumonia screening proved to be a good one. The device is easy to use and maintain, even in low-resource settings, and because of its ability to accurately and reliably measure SpO₂ and RR, it has the potential to transform the identification and management of pneumonia by healthcare workers, even those who may not be medical doctors. We hope that our study will help convince many more Indian states of the value of integrating use of Rad-G and its technological benefits into their care practices, supporting nationwide efforts to successfully diagnose and treat as many cases of pediatric pneumonia as possible.”

As the authors note, pneumonia – one of the most common causes of ARI in children – contributes to 15% of child deaths across the world, with India accounting for 20% of those deaths. In low-resource health settings, where access to diagnostic aids is limited, health workers often rely on manual counts of respiratory rate to inform ARI management decisions. In this trial, researchers evaluated oxygen saturation (SpO₂) and respiratory rate (in accordance with WHO guidelines for effective pneumonia management) measured by Rad-G. Given the often “inadequate skills” of front-line healthcare workers in low-resource and rural settings—for example, it was found that the majority of workers at Indian Health and Wellness Centers (HWCs) “lacked knowledge on how to correctly assess a child with cough or difficult breathing”—the authors hoped that Rad-G could help workers more readily diagnose pneumonia, prove to offer good “usability,” and ultimately, contribute to India’s goal of aggressively reducing child deaths due to pneumonia.