Oxygen in Pulmonary Rehabilitation

Abstract

Oxygen belongs to therapeutic pharmacological tools. It is a life-safer in a host of clinical conditions, notably in emergency treatment when it is supplemented on the acute basis, and in chronic hypoxic lung pathologies when it is often used in home-based self-treatment. Emergency supplementation of oxygen is often shunned due to the possibility of dampening of lung ventilation mediated by carotid body inhibition. That rekindles an old and still unclear issue of whether oxygen is actually inhibitory or stimulatory for ventilation. To this end, I would like to present some of our results on the application of high oxygen concentration to breathing in healthy humans. The ventilatory inhibition appeared short-lived during 1-2 min after the commencement of oxygen bleed into the airway pipe, mediated by carotid body inhibition, and was followed by a gradual increase in ventilation over the baseline level, likely of central origin. Thus, a passing oxygen-related ventilatory inhibition in healthy persons does not seem of clinical significance.