Home high-flow therapy evaluated in patients with chronic respiratory failure
Patients with chronic respiratory failure are typically treated with dry oxygen via a home oxygen mask, which often has side effects due to dry, dehydrated airways. In a national study, researchers will investigate the health effects of supplemental high-flow therapy, a mixture of oxygen and air, at higher flow rates. In the picture, research nurse Lovisa Hjorth demonstrates the high-flow equipment on Professor Eva Lindberg. Photo: Uppsala University Hospital.
Patients with chronic respiratory failure caused by COPD or pulmonary fibrosis are usually treated with dry oxygen via a home ventilator. Uppsala University Hospital is participating in a national study in which researchers will investigate the health effects of supplementary high-flow therapy, which involves a mixture of oxygen and air, with higher flows. This is according to a press release from Uppsala University Hospital.
‘The study is important because it can show whether high-flow therapy can become a potential new form of treatment for patients with COPD and chronic respiratory failure, patients who currently receive oxygen therapy via nasal prongs at home. This is a patient group with high morbidity and mortality, and we also know that side effects of current oxygen therapy are common due to dry, dehydrated airways,’ says Mirjam Ljunggren, a physician in pulmonary and allergic diseases at Uppsala University Hospital and a researcher at Uppsala University.
Mirjam Ljunggren. Photo: Mikael Wallerstedt
In Uppsala, the study started in December. For one year, patients at Uppsala University Hospital will be randomised into two groups, one of which will continue with standard home oxygen treatment, and the other, in addition to that treatment, will receive high-flow treatment; a mixture of oxygen and air where the air is humidified and heated, unlike the dry gas standard oxygen treatment provides.
The study includes patients on haem oxygen due to respiratory failure caused by chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) or interstitial lung disease, also known as pulmonary fibrosis. 400 000-700 000 people in Sweden have COPD, a disease that affects the lungs and airways. Pulmonary fibrosis, which is much rarer, is a group of lung diseases that involve inflammation and fibrosis of the lungs, i.e. the thin walls between the air sacs are thickened, stiff and turn into scar tissue.
‘We want to see if there is a difference in time to first hospitalisation or death up to one year after the start of the study in patients with COPD. We will also look at how often patients need to be hospitalised, the need for intensive care, episodes of deterioration in the underlying disease, symptoms and health-related quality of life, etc.' says Mirjam Ljunggren.
Uppsala University Hospital is one of ten hospitals participating in the HILOT clinical trial, led by Magnus Ekström in Lund/Karlskrona.