Abstract
From 1985 to 1987, 32 patients with chronic respiratory failure in our hospital under-went home oxygen therapy (HOT).
Nineteen men (30-80yr; mean age 63yr) and 13 women (32-83yr; mean age 61yr) received oxygen. The underlying diseases of the 32 patients were as follows: old pulmonary tuberculosis in 13 patients, pulmonary emphysema in 8, and lung fibrosis in 4.
The oxygen enrichment system was applied as an oxygen inhaler to all patients except one case. Twenty-six cases used membranous type (40%O2) and 5 cases adsorptive type (90%O2). In only one patient oxygen was supplied by the O2 cylinder.
Oxygen inhalation time was set up according to the clinical state of each patient. Patients received oxygen for at least 12 hours a day. The values of arterial blood gas before HOT were as follows: PaO2 was below 50 torr in 20 patients, between 50 and 60 torr in 6 and over 60 torr in 6.
Right cardiac catheterization was carried out in five cases (3 men and 2 women). All cases showed pulmonary hypertension, the mean resting pulmonary arterial pressure was 33mmHg. Four of the 32 patients died from underlying diseases during the two years. All of them died within 1 year after oxygen administration.
We analyzed the 19 cases who had passed over 1 year after HOT administration. They were 13 men and 6 women. Underlying diseases were similar to the all 32 cases. That is, pulmonary tuberculosis was the most and so forth.
The results were as follows. The value of %VC was slightly low in pulmonary function test, but PaO2 was significantly high even when they were breathing air. We expect this observation as reasonable, because our 19 cases had mainly restrictive pulmonary dysfunction. We have to observe precisely the course of our 32 cases.
