medical indications

Infections Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA)

Methicillin-resistant S. aureus can be well treated with HBO due to its bacteriostatic and bactericidal effect on bacteria. These effects are mediated by oxygen-based free radicals, which damage DNA and inhibit metabolic function (protein and nucleic acid synthesis) essential for bacterial growth.

Strict anaerobes (C. perfringens) causing gas gangrene have deficient defenses against those free radicals and are susceptible to killing by HBO. In contrast facultative anaerobes (S. aureus causing osteomyelitis) and obligate aerobes, can detoxify free radicals and are resistant to breathing pure oxygen at normal conditions (100% O2 at 1 ATA) because S. aureus is catalase+ and dismutase+, while HBO (100% O2 above 2 ATA) is bacteriostatic for these bacteria.

HBO raises oxygen tension in hypoxic tissue to level necessary for killing of bacteria by PMNs and optimal activity of certain antibiotics such as Sulfonamide, Amynoglycoside, and Vancomycin. HBO also enhances phagocytic clearance of S. aureus in lung tissue. HBO is therefore beneficial for potentiating the bactericidal effects of these antibiotics, and is a choice of adjunctive therapy to surgical intervention depending on the type of infection.

Protocol treatment:

HBO sessions are given at 2.5 ATA for 90 to 120 minutes once, or twice a day. The number of HBO sessions is individualized to each client and determined by the response to hyperbaric oxygen tests. At BaroMedical, the screening of the clients and the progress of the therapy are monitored with most advanced equipment: Laser Doppler blood flow, tissue oxygen monitor and digital camera
 

BaroMedical Hyperbaric OxygenCenter -   7850 Sixth Street   -   Burnaby  V3N 3N3  -   British Columbia  -  Vancouver  -  CANADA    -   Ph: 604-777-7055