Oxygen therapy no quick fix for lung disease

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Oxygen therapy from a portable tank does not improve the short-term physical activity or quality of life in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, according to study findings in the journal Chest.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, incorporates two principal diseases, emphysema and chronic bronchitis. Both conditions are strongly linked to smoking and involve difficulty in moving air through the lungs. Both can also be severely disabling and have life-threatening complications.

"Ambulatory oxygen is delivered by equipment that can be carried by patients during exercise and activities of daily living," Dr. Sally J. Singh and colleagues from University Hospitals of Leicester, UK, point out. "To date, the benefits of ambulatory oxygen in COPD remain uncertain, and concordance with therapy is poor."

The researchers examined how ambulatory oxygen affected domestic activity and outdoor activity in 20 patients with COPD, recruited after completing a 7-week lung rehabilitation program.

The subjects, who were an average of 73 years old, were randomly assigned to use tanks containing pure oxygen or regular air for 8 weeks.

No significant changes in domestic activity or quality of life were observed after treatment in either group. The only exception was a worsening of shortness of breath in the air group.

The authors report that among those in the oxygen group, there was a significant increase in average duration of tank use between the first and last two weeks of the study.

Most patients were using the tank at home rather than outside over the 8 weeks. However, the number of times that subjects reported using the tank outside the home increased over the 8 weeks for the oxygen group.

"There are likely to be some benefits to the use of ambulatory oxygen to explain the increased usage," Singh and colleagues surmise. "Patients need time to learn how to use oxygen, and ambulatory oxygen appears to enhance activities rather than increase them."

SOURCE: Chest, October 2008.