This Article  • References  • Full text PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citing articles on HighWire  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in JAMA  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Richard A. Neubauer, MD
Ocean Medical Center Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, Fla

JAMA. 1981;246(22):2574.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.—

Regarding the recent answer to a question on hyperbaric oxygen (HBO) therapy and stroke (1981;245:1873), I think that the scientific documentation for this form of treatment could have been more fully stated.

In the patient with acute stroke, cerebral edema may cause transtentorial herniation, impaired cerebral blood flow, and death.¹ Indeed, cerebral edema is one of the major factors in a poor outcome for stroke patients. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy has been demonstrated to be a viable treatment for acute cerebral edema,² and its use for this purpose is recommended by the Undersea Medical Society and paid for by Medicare. Brain damage in stroke patients may be further reduced by the increased oxygen delivery, a physiological effect of HBO therapy that is also well documented. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy also dramatically reduces RBC agglutination, which could improve cerebral blood flow.³

Early studies of the use of . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Footnotes
Edited by John D. Archer, MD, Senior Editor.

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?