Medical Gas Therapy
Medical gas therapy is one of the most common types of respiratory care, the delivering of gases for therapeutic purposes.
What are the Types of Medical Gas Therapy?
The most common type of medical gas therapy are:
- Oxygen Therapy
- Helium-Oxygen Therapy (Heliox)
- Nitrous Oxide Therapy
- Carbon Dioxide Therapy
- Nitric Oxide Therapy
Oxygen Therapy
Oxygen is a drug that respiratory therapists administer to patients requiring emergency life support, pulmonary disability, and post-operative states that may develop cardiopulmonary complications.
The patient can receive their oxygen therapy from tubes, a face mask, or a tube placed in the windpipe. This treatment dramatically increases the amount of oxygen the lungs deliver to the bloodstream.
The oxygen can be stored as a gas or liquid in tanks. Portable tanks make it easier for the patient to move around while using the therapy as it’s often an ongoing treatment.
This treatment is highly effective for conditions that cause low blood oxygen such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, pneumonia, COVID-19, asthma, heart failure, Cystic fibrosis, and sleep apnea.
Helium/Oxygen or Heliox Therapy
Heliox generally refers to a mixture of 21 percent O2 (normal air) and 79 percent Helium. Heliox requires less energy to ventilate the lungs. The “work of breathing” is reduced.
Heliox has been used for almost a hundred years and was key to the treatment for acute asthma before the invention of bronchodilators. Heliox is mainly used in when there is a condition of large airway narrowing such as an upper airway obstruction from tumors or foreign bodies and a vocal cord dysfunction).
Heliox has proven helpful with problems of the medium airways (such as croup, asthma and COPD—chronic obstructive pulmonary disease).
Nitrous Oxide Therapy
Nitrous Oxide is a medical gas used in surgical procedures as both an anesthetic and analgesic. Scientists are investigating inhaled nitric oxide’s potential to treat COVID-19 symptoms.
Nitric oxide works mechanistically as “a naturally produced molecule that is critical to the immune response against pathogens and infections,” according to a press release from Bellerophon Therapeutics.
“We’ve used this gas for 20-plus years to treat acute respiratory syndrome and heart issues,” said Keith Scott, MD, the principal investigator of a clinical trial.
Lou Ignarro, PhD, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for nitric oxide research, said that inhaled nitric oxide was used successfully to treat a small number of patients during the 2003 SARS outbreak. Compared with ventilation, “inhaled nitric oxide dilates or widens arteries to allow more blood to flow through the lungs,” Ignarro said. “It also relaxes the trachea and bronchioles, allowing more air to come in.”
Roger Alvarez, assistant professor of pulmonology at the University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine, told Healio Primary Care that he and his colleagues successfully treated 24 of 25 patients with COVID-19 using INOpulse.
“INOpulse is a portable inhaled nitric oxide device with a small cartridge with three channels,” said Alvarez, who also a Bellerophon Therapeutics investigator. “One carries the patient’s oxygen, one carries nitric oxide and one appropriately adjusts the dose based on the patient’s breathing pattern.”
Carbon Dioxide
Carbon dioxide is commonly used as during surgeries such as laparoscopy, endoscopy, and arthroscopy) to provide the surgeon better visibility of the surgical area by enlarging and stabilizing body cavities.
The irregular appearance of the skin surface, cellulite, can be altered by Carboxytherapy, a transcutaneous infusion of carbon dioxide into the affected area.
It can also be used successfully for cryotherapy, where temperatures of negative 76° C, can be achieved. Using this technique, body cells are destroyed through crystallization. This helps in the removal of warts, moles and skin tags.
Nitric Oxide Therapy
Nitric oxide decreases the tone in blood vessels and keeps pressure in the vasculature low. The journal Science named nitric oxide “Molecule of the Year” in 1992.
Recent and ongoing studies have shown that nitric oxide administration inhibits SARS-CoV-2 replication. And inhaled NO has been used successfully to treat severe COVID-19 patients on ventilators by improving the oxygenation of their blood though the expense and the requirement of a hospital setting make it an impractical strategy to treat patients recently diagnosed with COVID-19.
Medical gases have and continue to be highly effective and widely used in our treatments of a wide variety of ailments. And exciting new developments have shown that those suffering with the COVID-19 can benefit from a variety of these gases.
Conclusion
Air Source Industries has the quality medical oxygen and medical gases you need for effective medical gas therapy. We currently supply medical oxygen, nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide gases for gas therapy and other medical uses. Please contact our friendly and knowledgeable staff to get started by calling (562) 426-4017 or request a free quote by clicking “Get a Quote.”
Sources:
https://www.respiratorytherapyzone.com/medical-gas-therapy/
https://www.chthealthcare.com/blog/5-common-med-gas
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_gas_therapy
https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health-topics/oxygen-therapy#:~:text=Oxygen%20therapy%20is%20a%20treatment,and%20deliver%20to%20your%20blood.
https://www.healio.com/news/primary-care/20200520/evidence-mounts-supporting-inhaled-nitric-oxide-as-covid19-treatment
https://www.bochealthcare.co.uk/en/products-and-services/products-and-services-by-category/medical-gases/carbon-dioxide/medical-carbon-dioxide.html
https://aedit.com/procedure/carboxy-therapy
https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/408754_1
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/covid-19-nitric-oxide-shows-promise-as-antiviral-treatment