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Oxygen in Respiratory Care: A Personal Perspective from 40 Years in the Field

Oxygen is necessary for all aerobic life, and nothing is more important in respiratory care than its proper understanding, assessment, and administration. By the early 1970s PaO2 had become the gold standard for clinically assessing oxygenation in the body. Since the 1980s the measurement of arterial oxygen saturation by pulse oximetry has also been increasingly used as an adjunct to (but not a replacement for) PaO2. Despite the desirability of measuring tissue oxygenation directly, no reliable and clinically relevant such measure has emerged. The 2 areas in which oxygen has proven most important in respiratory care are long-term oxygen therapy (LTOT) and the management of potentially life-threatening hypoxemia in acute respiratory failure. That LTOT improves survival in appropriately selected patients with COPD was demonstrated by multicenter studies published more than 30 years ago, and their original selection criteria have so far not been improved upon. Severe hypoxemia in acute lung injury and ARDS can be improved by ventilation with PEEP, and also in many patients by various adjunctive techniques and alternative support strategies. However, the latter measures have not brought clear improvements in survival or other patient-relevant outcomes. In addition, the original goals of “normalizing” arterial oxygenation with high tidal volumes and lung-distending pressures have required modification as appreciation for ventilator-related lung injury has emerged. High concentrations of inspired oxygen may play a role in such injury, but aggressive measures to reduce them in order to avoid oxygen toxicity—which dominated ventilator management in previous decades—have been tempered in the present era of lung-protective ventilation. Although some additions and modifications have emerged, much of what we understand today about oxygen in respiratory care is owed to the pioneering work of Thomas L Petty more than 40 years ago.