It is commonly known within the art of cutaneous/transcutaneous blood gas monitoring to warm up the skin of the patient to allow carbon dioxide and oxygen to diffuse easily through the skin. This is especially the case for transcutaneous partial pressure monitoring of oxygen. Heating the skin to 43°C to 45°C over several hours or days may cause damage to the skin. In order to avoid or minimize the risk of these damage it is proposed to monitor the blood gases at a lower temperature with a cutaneous sensor and intermittently warm up the skin to a temperature of 42°C or more for a short duration to monitor the transcutaneous partial pressure of oxygen before lowering the temperature to the lower set point.
