BACKGROUND Oxygen desaturation during exercise is common in people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The aim of the study is to determine, in people with COPD who desaturate during exercise, whether supplemental oxygen during an eight-week exercise training program is more effective than medical air (sham intervention) in improving exercise capacity and health-related quality o...

BACKGROUND The role of routine supplemental oxygen for patients with uncomplicated acute myocardial infarction (AMI) has recently been questioned. There is conflicting data on the possible effects of hyperoxia on ischemic myocardium. The few clinical trials examining the role of oxygen in AMI were performed prior to the modern approach of emergent reperfusion and advanced medical management. ...

Supplemental oxygen is a marvelous “drug,” with several rather unique beneficial physiologic effects. It produces well-documented long-term benefits when administered to hypoxemic patients. A multi-billion-dollar industry has been established to provide supplemental oxygen to those for whom it is indicated. Nevertheless, research into the effectiveness (especially in the long term) of different...

1 There is little doubt that children with chronic hypoxemia benefit from supplemental oxygen, which, when appropriate, can be administered outside the hospital setting. Long-term home oxygen is now a well recognized form of therapy; however, as is often the case in pediatric practice, evidence for its benefit is not always convincing. This was highlighted in the 2009 British Thoracic Society (...

OBJECTIVE This study estimates the prevalence of injured patients requiring prehospital supplemental oxygen based on existing recommendations, and determines whether actual use exceeds those recommendations. PATIENTS AND METHODS Prehospital oxygen use and continuous peripheral oxygen saturation measurements were prospectively collected on a purposive sample of injured civilians transported to...

UNLABELLED Home oxygen therapy programme is new in Malaysia. This programme enables children with respiratory insufficiency to be discharged home early. MATERIALS AND METHODS Long term oxygen therapy was initiated using an oxygen concentrator in patients who i) remained hypoxic while breathing room air, ii) experienced desaturations of more than 20% during sleep as seen in patients with sever...

High intra-operative oxygen concentration reportedly reduces postoperative nausea and vomiting (PONV), but recent data are conflicting. Therefore, we tested whether the effectiveness of supplemental oxygen depends on the endpoint (nausea vs. vomiting), observation interval (early vs. late) or surgical field (abdominal vs. non-abdominal). We randomly assigned 560 adult patients undergoing variou...

STUDY OBJECTIVE It is suggested that oxygen flow be increased by 1 L/min during sleep in COPD patients undergoing long-term oxygen therapy (LTOT) in order to avoid nocturnal desaturations. The purpose of this study was to investigate the occurrence of nocturnal desaturations while breathing oxygen in COPD patients receiving LTOT. SETTING Inpatient/university hospital. PATIENTS We studied 82...

RATIONALE Home oxygen is the most expensive equipment item that Medicare purchases ($1.7 billion/year). OBJECTIVES To assess geographic differences in supplemental oxygen use. METHODS Retrospective cohort analysis of oxygen claims for a 20% random sample of Medicare patients hospitalized for obstructive lung disease in 1999 and alive at the end of 2000. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS While...