What is Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy? (HBOT)
A medical treatment that takes place in a pressurized chamber, Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) enhances the body’s natural healing process via providing an environment that consists of 90-100% oxygen. It is typically used for a wide variety of treatments and also can serve as a part of an overall medical care plan.
The FDA has approved Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy to help treat:
- Decompression illness,
- carbon monoxide poisoning,
- burns resulting from heat or fire,
- anemia due to severe blood loss,
- some brain and sinus infections,
- skin grafts,
- acute traumatic ischemia, (for example, as a result from a crush injury),
- air or gas embolism,
- necrotizing soft tissue infections,
- osteomyelitis, a bone marrow infection,
- arterial insufficiency, or low blood flow in the arteries,
- gas gangrene,
- a radiation injury, for example, (for example, as a result of cancer treatment).
Additionally, wounds and infections that have not responded to other treatment may respond to Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT). For example, it may help reduce the need for amputation in people with diabetic foot ulcers. It can also stimulate brain function and support in the recovery from surgical procedures.
The History of Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT)
The first Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) chamber was created in 1662 by a physician with the belief that this sealed, pressurized room could help treat certain respiratory diseases and ailments. His work is especially remarkable because it occurred before the discovery of oxygen.
Paul Bert, a French engineer, physician and scientist, paved the way for the foundations of hyperbaric medicine and treatment in 1872. Bert wrote about the physiological effects of air under increased and decreased atmospheric pressures in La Pression Barometrique. This paper focused on his experimental demonstration of the hypoxic etiology of altitude sickness.
In 1891, Dr. J. Leonard Corning built the first hyperbaric chamber in the Western Hemisphere in New York. Dr. Orval Cunningham, chairman of the Department of Anesthesiology at Kansas University Medical School, became particularly interested in hyperbaric oxygen chambers during the influenza pandemic at the end of World War I. Over the next several years, he utilized hyperbaric chambers to treat a variety of diseases such as diabetes, arthritis and syphilis. The medical community remained skeptical of Cunningham’s work with hyperbaric air because he failed to substantiate his claims with clinical data.
Later, in the 1930s, Álvaro Osório de Almeida recognized the potential benefits of hyperbaric oxygen therapy and published several papers on his work on the effects of high doses of oxygen on tumors in animals and people. The United States Navy also conducted extensive research on the use of hyperbaric oxygen to treat decompression sickness. Since this time, physicians and scientists have continued to explore the use of hyperbaric oxygen therapy in the treatment and management of disease, viruses, bacteria and other ailments.