Saving Lives With Home Oxygen Therapy

A wider use of home oxygen therapy could save the lives of thousands of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), according to a new study.

Researchers from the RAND Corporation (Santa Monica, CA, USA) analyzed two years of medical records for 429 patients with obstructive lung disease living in 12 communities across the United States. The study found different patterns of care provided to patients with asthma and COPD. Patients with asthma received about 67% of the care recommended for routine management of their illness, but only 48% of the care recommended when their condition worsened. The opposite pattern was seen among patients with COPD; patients received just 46% of the routine care recommended for COPD, compared with about 60% of recommended care when their symptoms were worse. Overall, researchers found that patients received 55% of the recommended care.

The researchers also found lower-than-expected use of tests that evaluate lung function among patients with COPD, and a low rate of the use of spacers with metered-dose inhalers for both COPD and asthma patients. The study was published in the November 2006 edition of the journal Chest.

"Our findings show that the quality of care provided to patients with obstructive lung disease is lacking, just as it is for many other common health problems,” said lead author Dr. Richard A. Mularski, a physician-researcher with the Center for Health Research, Kaiser Permanente (Oakland, CA, USA). "We found several specific areas of care that could be targeted for improvement efforts.”

The researchers estimate that increasing the number of COPD patients who receive oxygen treatment at home could prevent 27,000 to 57,000 deaths annually in the United States alone, while increasing the number of hospitalized asthmatic patients who receive systematic steroids could prevent nearly 2,000 additional deaths each year.

The RAND Corporation derives its name from a contraction of the term "research and development.”



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