Katsenos Stamatis, Constantopoulos Stavros H
Department of Pneumonology, University Hospital of Ioannina, 45110 Ioannina, Greece.
Pulm Med. 2011;2011:325362. doi: 10.1155/2011/325362. Epub 2011 Sep 15.
Long-term oxygen therapy (LTOT) is the cornerstone mode of treatment in patients with severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) associated with resting hypoxaemia. When appropriately prescribed and correctly used, LTOT has clearly been shown to improve survival in hypoxemic COPD patients. Adherence to LTOT ranges from 45% to 70% and utilization for more than 15 hours per day is widely accepted as efficacious. Although several studies have addressed the level of patients' adherence to LTOT, few have suggested or evaluated interventions that conduce to compliance enhancement. The lack of sufficient data regarding COPD patients following oxygen prescription is an enormous void that must be duly confronted to augment clinical effectiveness and cost containment for the long term use. The present review article highlights factors influencing the compliance of patients using LTOT and emphasizes novel strategies and interventions that may prove to be of significant benefit given the remarkably little current research appraising this issue. Therefore, additional research should be promptly performed to verify the efficacy of newly designed approaches in improving the outcomes of patients receiving LTOT.
长期氧疗（LTOT）是重度慢性阻塞性肺疾病（COPD）合并静息性低氧血症患者的基础治疗模式。当合理处方并正确使用时，LTOT已明确显示可提高低氧血症COPD患者的生存率。LTOT的依从率在45%至70%之间，每天使用超过15小时被广泛认为是有效的。尽管有几项研究探讨了患者对LTOT的依从程度，但很少有研究提出或评估有助于提高依从性的干预措施。关于COPD患者氧疗处方后的充分数据匮乏是一个巨大的空白，必须适当应对，以提高长期使用的临床效果和控制成本。本综述文章强调了影响LTOT患者依从性的因素，并强调了一些新的策略和干预措施，鉴于目前对这一问题的研究非常少，这些策略和干预措施可能被证明具有显著益处。因此，应立即开展更多研究，以验证新设计方法在改善接受LTOT患者结局方面的疗效。
