What do flesh-eating bacteria, diabetic foot ulcers and carbon monoxide poisoning have in common?

They all are on the list of 13 medical conditions approved for treatment with hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT)-breathing 100% oxygen under pressure while fully enclosed in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber. And there are many other conditions not yet officially approved that can benefit from the way HBOT treats disease.

HBOT is best known as a treatment for scuba divers with decompression sickness, or "the bends'' -when nitrogen bubbles form in the blood and other tissues. HBOT works partly by compressing those bubbles and dissolving them.

 

 

In the 1960s, doctors in the Netherlands discovered that HBOT could treat a life-threatening infection called gas gangrene, which can occur after severe wounds, such as those from gunshots and car accidents. The oxygen kills the anaerobic (nonoxygen-using) bacteria that cause the infection.

In 1965, Japanese doctors used HBOT to treat carbon monoxide poisoning from a coal mine fire. The oxygen displaces the carbon monoxide that is stuck to red blood cells.

The doctors also found that burns healed faster among patients treated with HBOT, generating another use for the therapy. Oxygen can reduce the secondary inflammatory reaction that accompanies any injury-the activation of the immune system's white blood cells and their subsequent discharge of toxic chemicals and enzymes, which further damages tissue.

The Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society (UHMS)-an organization representing physicians, nurses and technicians in the field of hyperbaric medicine-met with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and recommended HBOT for 13 specific conditions. These conditions are eased or aggravated by reduced oxygen level in body tissue. More than 30 years later, those approved conditions remain much the same: