Home-based long-term oxygen therapy and oxygen conservation devices: An updated review

Abstract

Oxygen therapy has long become a cornerstone in the treatment of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases and other hypoxemic and hypercapnic chronic respiratory diseases. Studies have clearly shown benefits in terms of survival, improvement in dyspnea, exercise tolerance, and other associated conditions like pulmonary hypertension that arise due to the disease. However, guidelines regarding prescription of oxygen and to make choice of the delivery devices are not explicit. Furthermore, there still prevails a large unawareness and confusion among physicians to properly prescribe and advise patients about the use of oxygen for home therapy customized as per individual needs. The availability of several new oxygen delivery and conservation devices and techniques over the past few decades has provided a wide spectrum of options to be used in combinations or alone. This article retrospectively tries to review the studies, trials, and researches published so far in this field to give a broad idea based on consistent scientific evidence to help physicians frame their set of guidelines for prescribing long-term oxygen therapy. © 2015 Manoj Meena.