Inhalation of Varying Concentrations of Oxygen in the Treatment of Severe Pulmonary Insufficiency

¹ The Cardiopulmonary Laboratory and the Medical Service, Veterans Administration Hospital, Hines, Illinois., Director, Cardiopulmonary Laboratory, Saint Joseph Infirmary, Louisville, Kentucky.
² The Cardiopulmonary Laboratory and the Medical Service, Veterans Administration Hospital, Hines, Illinois.

1. The management of the hypoxia of acute pulmonary insufficiency in chronic lung disease is often a difficult emergency problem.

2. Ideally, oxygen should be administered in this condition in such a way as to increase the arterial oxygen tension without aggravating the hypercapnia.

3. The choice of oxygen therapy will therefore depend on the response of the patient's arterial gas tensions to a given inspired oxygen concentration however delivered. This response will vary from patient to patient according to the pulmonary structural pathology present.

4. The importance of determining arterial gas tensions initially and after each variation in oxygen therapy is stressed. Repeated determinations in 12 to 24 hours may be indicated if clinical improvement does not occur.

5. Oxygen administered by the nasal catheter humidification technique may not be adequate. Low oxygen flows given by this method may actually prolong the hypoxic state.

6. A method is described in which varying oxygen concentrations were effectively employed in the IPPB/I (intermittent positive pressure, inspiratory) apparatus.