Home oxygen therapy in infants with bronchopulmonary dysplasia: a prospective study

Abstract

Home O2 therapy permits the safe early discharge of O2-dependent BPD infants and it reduces significantly the length of time spent in hospital which represents a considerable financial saving.

High versus restricted use of home oxygen therapy, health care utilisation and the cost of care in chronic lung disease infants

“…It is essential to keep CLD infants above a critical level [8] to maintain adequate weight gain and avoid the development of pulmonary hypertension, the magnitude of the critical level, however, remains debated. The minimum oxygen saturation levels recommended in the four centres, for infants on home oxygen therapy, however, was the same and similar to that recommended by others [1,8]. Nevertheless, the high use centres discharged their infants home at a significantly younger age, demonstrating that their higher use of home oxygen and willingness to consider tube-fed infants in their programme facilitated early discharge.…”

Prescription of Home Oxygen Therapy to Infants in Germany

“…Results from several studies do suggest that home oxygen therapy may lead to a decrease in the frequency of sudden infant death syndrome [4,5], a decrease in the frequency of intermittent hypoxaemia [6,7], an increase in weight gain [8] and a reduction in the length of time spent in hospital [9]. However, there has yet been no randomised controlled trial on the effectiveness of home oxygen therapy in infants.…”

Assessing oxygen requirement after discharge in chronic lung disease: a survey of current practice

“…SpO 2 levels in healthy preterm infants can range from 86% to 100% with a mean or median generally in the high 90s [12,13,15,21]. Suggested acceptable SpO 2 levels for a child with CLD in air have ranged from above 92% [7,18] to above 94% [2,22]. Our survey revealed a wide variation as to what SpO 2 is acceptable in air.…”