Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy

Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy Treatment at Mayo Clinic

For more than 50 years, hyperbaric oxygen therapy was used primarily to help deep-sea divers recover from "the bends." It is still used for this purpose, as well as for a number of other medical conditions. In recent years, scientists, physiologists and other health care professionals have learned to speed wound recovery by dramatically increasing the blood oxygen levels of patients with hyperbaric oxygen therapy. The treatment involves breathing 100 percent oxygen while resting under two to three times normal air pressure in a sealed room. Hyperbaric medicine at Mayo Clinic is administered by the clinic's renowned Aerospace Medicine program.

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy creates a healing environment that can help save the limbs of people with diabetes, heal wounds, save damaged tissue and reverse the effects of exposure to life-threatening events such as air-gas embolisms. A 6,000-square-foot facility built at Mayo Clinic in Minnesota in 2007 is home to the largest rectangular hyperbaric chamber in the United States. Its 24-patient seating capacity is vastly improved from earlier models, which typically had a submarine-like appearance and were quite confining. Inside the Mayo hyperbaric oxygen therapy suite, the treatment rooms look and feel much like any other room. Patients undergoing hyperbaric oxygen therapy enjoy natural light and an audio-video entertainment system, and can read or visit with other patients during treatment. The facility also includes dressing rooms, four exam rooms, and a smaller chamber to accommodate one person.

The length of treatment depends on the condition. Patients may require as few as two or three 90-minute sessions for conditions such as carbon monoxide poisoning or up to 30 sessions for nonhealing wounds. The three main categories of conditions treated are:

• Limb saving, treating nonhealing wounds of patients at risk of limb loss and traumatic crush injuries
• Tissue saving, from effects of radiation therapy, failed flaps and skin grafts or necrotizing infection
• Lifesaving, for treatment of air-gas embolisms and decompression sickness