“What oxygen is to the lungs; such is hope to the meaning of life”. This is placed in context where animals are being given second chances in life due to the simple element of oxygen. Innovations in veterinary medicine have advanced to the point where hyperbaric chambers are being developed to change the course of treatment. These are special chambers where patients are placed for treatment as the air pressure is increased 2 to 3 times higher than normal air pressure.
According to the Mayo Clinic, lungs can gather a greater supply of oxygen from pressurized oxygen as compared to pure oxygen because the air in the lungs has a higher concentration of oxygenated blood rather than deoxygenated blood. This concentration of gradient with pressurized oxygen allows for quicker gas exchange during respiration. Viewing this from a more mathematical perspective, in a healthy patient breathing pure oxygen at sea level, hemoglobin saturation is more than 97% and the plasma oxygen concentration is 0.3 mL/dL. The solubility of a gas is proportional to its pressure, as defined in Henry’s law of gas behavior; therefore, as the atmospheric pressure of oxygen rises, so does the plasma oxygen concentration. This concentration jumps fivefold with the administration of 100% oxygen alone without pressure changes, and tenfold when the oxygen is administered at 2 ATA. Increasing the pressure to 3 ATA results in a plasma oxygen concentration of 6 mL/dL, which is more than high enough to meet all resting cellular requirements without the need for hemoglobin-bound oxygen. Another benefit to increasing plasma oxygen concentration is that oxygen dissolved in the plasma can diffuse up to 4 times further into microcirculation than oxygen transported by red blood cells according to Fick’s law. This is particularly crucial in damaged tissue in which the capillaries are pushed farther apart and are unable to deliver the oxygen necessary for cellular respiration and repair. This extra oxygen is life changing as it aids in fighting bacteria which can help treat serious infections. It also triggers the release of substances called growth factors and stem cells, which promote healing and allow the treatment of wounds that may not heal because of diabetes or radiation injury. Many experimental animal models and clinical studies have shown improvements in healing with hyperbaric oxygen treatment in grafts and flaps, burns, bone, cartilage, and muscle as well as treating brain abscess or decompression sickness. Hyperbaric oxygen treatment’s ability to modulate neutrophil and macrophage (types of white blood cells) function enables it to elicit positive effects for internal medical conditions, particularly immune-mediated diseases and those characterized by inflammation. It's insane how something as simple as oxygen can help treat such complex organisms.
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