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Long-term oxygen supplement has no impact on COPD patients
A newly published study of people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) concludes that long-term supplemental oxygen treatment results in little or no change in time to death, time to first hospitalizations or significant quality of life improvements for those with moderately low blood oxygen levels.
A newly published study of people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) concludes that long-term supplemental oxygen treatment results in little or no change in time to death, time to first hospitalizations or significant quality of life improvements for those with moderately low blood oxygen levels.
The findings, published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Oct. 27, are based on research examining oxygen treatment outcomes in 738 COPD patients with moderately low blood oxygen levels at 42 clinical centers in the United States.
The study began in 2009 and ended in 2015. Patients who received supplemental oxygen over the course of the study showed no significant differences in rate of hospitalizations, time to death after diagnosis, exercise capacity or quality of life when compared to patients who did not receive supplemental oxygen.
The results of the study, believed by the investigators to be the largest of its kind to date, show that most people with moderately low blood oxygen levels do not receive the same benefits from long-term oxygen therapy as COPD patients with severely low blood oxygen levels. “The benefits of long-term oxygen supplements for COPD patients with severe oxygen deficiency are clear,” says Robert Wise, M.D., professor of medicine in the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine’s Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine and the paper’s corresponding author.
“However, it’s never been established what benefits, if any, exist for patients with less severe oxygen deficiency.” For the study, moderate oxygen deficiency was defined as having a blood oxygen saturation between 89 and 93 percent at rest, or a blood oxygen saturation below 90 percent during a six-minute walk test.
A normal blood oxygen saturation level is generally defined as between 94 and 99 percent. Blood oxygen saturation levels are a measure of oxygen-carrying hemoglobin in circulating blood and a marker of lung function, and low levels are a hallmark of people with COPD.
