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The British Thoracic Society Guidelines 2015-Summary
The British Thoracic Society Guidelines 2015-Summary
The British Thoracic Society Guidelines 2015-Summary
Key recommendations:
1)
Long term Oxygen Therapy Remains the most evidence-based form of home oxygen
therapy and the new guidelines have made no recommendations to current indications or
thresholds.
2)
The guidelines recommend Ambulatory Oxygen Assessment only in the case of LTOT
patients that are mobile outside
3)
With regard to cancer or end-stage cardiorespiratory disease with severe and intractable
breathlessness, palliative oxygen therapy has no role if resting oxygen levels are normal or only
slightly hypoxaemic but are still above existing LTOT guidelines standards.
4)
Short burst oxygen therapy shouldn't be ordered for use prior to or following exercise in
COPD regardless of resting hypoxaemia or not.
5)
The guidelines provide risk assessent approach for assessing the safey aspects of all types
of oxygen therapy in the home, especially in smokers.1
LTOT
LTOT in COPD
- stable and resting PaO2 < 7.3.
- stable COPD with resting PaO2 < 8.0 and evidence of peripheral odema, polycythaemia or
pulmonary hypertension
-order in patients with resting hypercapnia and fulfillment of other criteria for LTOT (only indicated
for COPD, but no other lung disease).
At Discharge
-Formal assessment after 8 weeks of stability (ie 8 weeks from previous exacerbation)
2Hardinge M, Annandale J, Bourne S, Cooper B, Evans A, Freeman D, Green A, Hippolyte S, Knowles V, MacNee W, et
al.Thorax. 2015 Jun; 70 Suppl 1:i1-43.