Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) - Overview & History:

Nature has proven that healing can not take place without appropriate oxygen levels in your pet’s body tissues. Breathing oxygen under normal atmospheric pressure is not enough to raise tissue oxygen levels to reverse this lack of oxygen because red blood cells cannot carry and release enough extra oxygen.

Clinically, adequate tissue perfusion and sufficient oxygen supply are two basic requirements for the body’s healing responses. Without these elements, tissues will soon enter a hypoxic state. Hypoxia impairs many healingprocesses including bacterial eradication, collagen synthesis, angiogenesis, and epithelialization. Hypoxia has also been shown to slow wound healing while favoring bacterial growth.

In order to overcome the oxygen hypoxia and raise tissue oxygen levels high enough for optimal healing to occur, the oxygen must be delivered under increased atmospheric pressure, process called - Hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT).

What is the term "Hyperbaric" mean?  Hyper - "more" and  Baric - related to "pressure". Thus,  Hyperbaric - More Pressure.

Definition: Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) is a medical treatment in which a patient breathes 100% oxygen inside an enclosed chamber while the pressure is controlled and increased to greater than atmospheric pressure resulting in increased oxygen delivery to all the body tissues. 

In short, hyperbaric oxygen therapy involves oxygen as a medium of gas and an enclosed chamber as a tool to deliver oxygen at greater pressures. Under these conditions, lungs can gather more oxygen than would be possible breathing pure oxygen at normal air pressure following the basic gas physics laws.

In normal circumstances, oxygen is transported throughout the body only by red blood cells. By way of hyperbaric oxygen therapy, more oxygen is dissolved not only through red blood cells but also into the blood plasma, blood cells, cerebral-spinal fluid and other bodily fluids.

HBOT utilizes oxygen, provided at optimal levels can have profound anti-inflammatory, anti-microbial and tissue healing benefits. It can accelerate healing dramatically and assist in conditions where there is an oxygen deficit.

Physiological effects: Vasoconstriction and enhanced oxygen delivery, reduction of edema, phagocytosis activation and also an anti-inflammatory effect - enhanced leukocyte function,  neovascularization - angiogenesis in hypoxic soft tissues, osteoneogenesis, stimulation of collagen production by fibroblasts, stem cell mobilization by eight times are known long-term effects.

Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy or “HBOT” is most often used as an “adjunctive treatment.”  This means that hyperbaric oxygen therapy is employed in conjunction with other forms of animal health care and is a part of the total medical treatment package or care regime.

Short History of hyperbaric oxygen therapy:

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) is a medical treatment that can be traced back to the 1600’s. In 1662, the first renowned chamber was built and operated by a British clergyman named Henshaw. He erected a structure titled, the Domicilium, that was used to treat a variety of conditions. 

In 1878, Paul Bert, a French physiologist, discovered the link between decompression sickness and nitrogen bubbles. Bert later identified that the pain could be ameliorated with recompression. The concept of treating patients under pressurized conditions was continued by the French surgeon Fontaine, who later built a pressurized mobile operating room in 1879. Fontaine found that inhaled nitrous oxide had a greater potency under pressure, in addition to his patients having improved oxygenation.

In the early 1900’s Dr. Orville Cunningham, a professor of anesthesia, observed that people with particular heart diseases improved better when they lived closer to sea level than those living at higher altitudes. He treated a colleague who was suffering from influenza and was near death due to lung restriction. His resounding success led him to develop what was known as the “Steel Ball Hospital” located along the shore of Lake Erie. The six story structure was erected in 1928 and was 64 feet in diameter. The hospital could reach 3 atmospheres absolute. Unfortunately, due to the depressed financial status of the economy, it was deconstructed during in 1942 for scrap.

Subsequently, hyperbaric chambers were later developed by the military in the 1940’s to treat deep-sea divers who suffered from decompression sickness. In the 1950’s, physicians first employed HBOT during heart and lung surgery, which led to its use for carbon monoxide poisoning in the 1960’s. 

Since then, over 10,000 clinical trials and case studies have been completed for numerous other health-related applications with the vast majority of results reporting resounding success.

There are over 30,000 published papers on various indications available world wide.

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