Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy in Chronic Vascular Wound Management

Abstract

Many nonhealing tissues are hypoxic, with oxygen tensions frequently ranging from 5 to 15 mmHg. In such an environment, the normal wound healing sequence is disrupted or halted and phagocytic killing activity depressed. So the adjunctive use of hyperbaric oxygen (HBO), based on physiologic data and clinical observations, can provide the substrate necessary to initiate and sustain the healing process.

During a twelve-month period, 20 patients with a nonhealing wound were referred to the hyperbaric center : chronic arterial insufficiency ulcers in 9 cases, diabetic wounds (foot lesions) in 11 cases.

Adjunctive HBO therapy, initiated twice a day, consisted of pure oxygen, 2.5 ATA, 90 min. The average length of sessions was 46 (15-108). Complete healing was observed in 15 of 20 cases.

The wound management can be helped with the transcutaneous oxygen measurements under hyperbaric oxygen. The distal TCPO₂ at 2.5 ATA pure oxygen is a reliable test to predict final outcome (healing or no change), when these values were not different in normal air and in normobaric oxygen:

Distal No TCPO₂ Healing Change air 32 ± 31 NS 12 ± 4 1 ATA O₂ 75 ± 70 NS 18 ± 10 2 ATA O₂ 635 ± 388 p = 0.003 45 ± 20

In hyperbaric oxygen therapy, when the distal TCPO₂ value was inferior to 100 mmHg, all patients showed either no improvement or aggravation, and when the value was higher than 100mmHg, wound healing was achieved with all patients.

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