About Hyperbaric Oxygen Treatments (HBOT)

Supporting documents (classified chronologically)

The beneficial properties of hyperbaric oxygen are used for purposes other than reducing decompression times and solving diving-related accidents or gasses intoxications, and many scientists highlight the beneficial results of such treatments. It is, for example, the case of a paper called “Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy: An Overview”, written by doctors Gordon Slater, Martin O’Malley, Tayla Slater, and Tandose Sambo. In another article called “Chronicles of hyperbaric oxygen treatment”, doctor Tahreem Fatima suggests that such therapies enhance the anti-microbial effects of the immune system and have an additive or synergistic effect with anti-microbial agents. In their paper entitled “Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy: Descriptive review of the technology and current application in chronic wounds”, doctors Babak Hajhosseini, Britta A. Kuehlmann, Clark A. Bonham, Kathryn J. Kamperman, & Geoffrey C. Gurtner, make an assessment of the hyperbaric oxygen treatments approved by the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society (UHMS). The acknowledged applications of these procedures other than resolving decompression sickness, arterial gas embolisms, and CO poisoning intoxications can be listed as follows: • Gas gangrene • Acute traumatic peripheral ischemia • Crush injuries and suturing of severed limbs • Acute peripheral arterial insufficiency • Progressive necrotizing infections • Preparation and preservation of compromised skin grafts • Chronic refractory osteomyelitis • Radionecrosis • Cyanide poisoning • Actinomycosis • Diabetic wounds of the lower extremities • Failure of standard wound therapy • Osteoporosis Note that some hospitals’ hyperbaric treatment chambers differ from those used for diving activities by the fact that they are square instead of rounded for better integration in the building and easy access by people not in optimal physical condition. These chambers are heavier than those we use for diving due to the necessity to compensate for the non-optimal shape for withstanding the pressure (rounded shapes are the most resistant), and they are usually unable to withstand the same pressures as rounded chambers. For example, the model below designed by CCC Group (https://www.cccgroupinc.com/), a company based in San Antonio, Texas, USA, is limited to three ATA. Some other hospital chambers are rounded, except for the extremities that are flat and provided with a square door, like chambers used for tunneling. These chambers are very wide compared with those we use for surface-supplied and saturation diving; it is the case of the model below. Of course, diving chambers can be used for such medical treatments, and doctors may request to use them if hospital facilities are not available and, by this fact, involve their operators. Documents are available in our database to provide more information regarding this aspect of using hyperbaric chambers. Click on the button below to open the page where they are described with the hyperlinks to open and download them. They can also be accessed through Documents / Scientific papers.

Photo from “Chronicles of hyperbaric oxygen treatment” by doctor Tahreem Fatima