Oxygen. . . Can that drug by itself save lives?

[JPINFV]

Hold your breathe for 4 minutes. See saves lives every day.

I do very well with normal atmospheric oxygen. At ~22%, oxygen is not a drug. Since we're talking about using oxygen as a drug, I'm forced to conclude that we're talking about using supplemental oxygen to increase FiO2 past 0.22.

[arctic_myst]

Oxygen is classified as a drug. It's administration can help or hurt a patient. It is controlled by the U.S. Pharmacopeia. They say it is a drug. And we all know when we are talking about oxygen, we are not talking about room air.

[JPINFV]

This post

Oxygen is classified as a drug. It's administration can help or hurt a patient. It is controlled by the U.S. Pharmacopeia. They say it is a drug. And we all know when we are talking about oxygen, we are not talking about room air.

is inconsistant with this post

Hold your breathe for 4 minutes. See saves lives every day.

since oxygen isn't being administered during normal breathing.

That is all.

[arctic_myst]

The question was, does oxygen save lives. the answer is yes. it maintains life everyday for ever living creature on the planet.

there was no question about administration or anything close to that. i mentioned the drug controls because you said it was not a drug...technically that is wrong. Oxygen is a drug. you can't even give it on the ambulance without it being included in the standing protocols...doesn't that by definition alone make it a drug. please correct me if I'm wrong, I am all about learning everything i can in this field, and you are helping greatly.

[JPINFV]

Err, atmospheric oxygen is not a drug. Or do you think that the FDA controls the amout of O2 in room air? Oxygen is not ALWAYS a drug. When oxygen is administered (hence increasing FiO2 above 0.22) then the supplemental oxygen is a drug. Furthermore, I wouldn't call maintaining life the same as saving a life. It's like sugar. Sugar is needed to live too. When sugar comes from food then it isn't a drug. When it comes from a tube (D50 or oral glucose) then it is a drug.

[arctic_myst]

Ok let's end this tedious argument. Normal air is not a drug, no. But his question was...can the drug oxygen, by itself, save lives. If you say no...I will wonder what school you went to. It really doesn't matter what I said because you have been arguing two different points as well. The question was simple..and the answer is simple...yes, oxygen by it self can save someones life. end of story. thank you and goodnight.

[JPINFV]

^

And your reply when I stated that a 1 line response was worthless after over 3 pages of posting (true, there was some hijacking involved around page 2 and 3). I still don't get how "hold your breath" is an answer if we aren't supposed to talk about room air. Sure, oxygen can save the life of an acutely hypoxic patient, especially in patients with CO poisoning, but it is either unsupported or shown to be dangerous in many other cases (stroke [bad] (http://emj.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/20/6/547-a) and MI's [unsupported] (http://emj.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/21/1/75-a) for example). There are even mixed studies when looking at mortality rates in patients with COPD (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=11034726&dopt=Citation). In many cases (as presented earlier in this thread) oxygen isn't nearly as important as how it is delivered. Does oxygen save an apneic patient? Maybe, but the fact that it is being delivered by PPV is more important than if you are delivered room air or pure oxygen. I'm sure the same holds true for C/BiPAP treatments for pulmonary edema.

Interesting commentary on oxygen treatment.

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/324/7351/1406

For the record, since you asked, I'm currently a student at UC Irvine.

[AnthonyM83]

The original question was concerning oxygen saving lives in the context of pure O2 coming out of a tank used as an EMS drug, but Artic gave a reply that referred to everday 21% oxygen in the atmosphere.

If he was just giving a smart reply reminding us how it allows us to live, then he's right.

If he was actually answering the question, in my opinion, he's wrong...at least not with the info given.

[OzMedic]

I've posted my views and research about the excessive and inappropriate use of oxygen in EMS in other forums so I won't bore everybody again when a simple search will reveal the info if somebody is interested. Is oxygen helpful?........common sense would dictate that is is but where is the evidence? Can it be harmful?............when administered inappropriately, yes (and I am not talking about the "hypoxic drive" theory in COPD patients).

The one thing I think I can offer people reading this thread is perhaps a different perspective on the threads original question. Does oxygen save lives? I say no! The reason I say no is that I feel that inexperienced people in EMS are lead to believe wrongly that it does. Supplemental oxygen therapy buys you time, it is a stop-gap until you can fix the real problem. The mistake that people make is they think that the oxygen is actually correcting something. They see their patient improve after administering a little oxygen and think they have fixed the problem. Often the patients own body may have fixed the problem while the oxygen was being applied. A possible exception being the example of carbon-monoxide poisoning where high oxygen concentrations may help to displace the carbon monoxide from haemoglobin.

I guess the message I want to get across is, sure put some oxygen on a patient if you think they need it but don't stop there. Think about why the patient needs it and try to resolve that problem or get the patient to someone who can. Think about the underlying problem people and fix it because the oxygen can't! :wink:

[MTNMANMEDIC]

The use of O2 in a prehospital setting has been proven many times to be beneficial to the patient.

If it wasn't it wouldn't be in the text books.

Does every patient need it ?

No, of course not but you take one patient into an ED anywhere that should have been on 02 and you chose not to put them on 02 because your "experience" told you not to and see how fast you get chewed a new one.