The Potential Role of Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy in Patients With Inflammatory Bowel Disease.

The Potential Role of Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy in Patients With Inflammatory Bowel Disease G&H Why has hyperbaric oxygen therapy been considered for the treatment of patients with inflammatory bowel disease?PD Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), which encompasses both Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, is a multifactorial autoimmune disorder of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract.One of the core components of IBD is hypoxia, or low oxygen tension, in the GI tract.Normally, the GI tract does not have high levels of oxygen tension at the surface of the lining of the interior, and human bodies are adept at dealing with fluctuations in oxygen.However, when there are breaks in the lining, like what happens in IBD, and there is exposure to bacteria, immune cells infiltrate and consume whatever oxygen is there very rapidly.This causes extreme depletion of oxygen and relative hypoxia that then promotes progression of inflammation by allowing bad bacteria or anaerobes to persist as well as for the immune cells to persist and continue to contribute to the inflammation.It has been known for a long time that hypoxia is a critical regulator of inflammation in IBD.Researchers have just never found a good way to target hypoxia in the past because it is such a central physiologic process to the human body that targeting the independent pathways that are involved is difficult.Hyperbaric oxygen therapy is a technology that has been around for a long time that offers an opportunity to hyperoxygenate tissue at a level that would not be achievable in any other manner.In this treatment approach, the patient enters a closed see-through chamber in which the air is changed out for 100% oxygen.The patient is pressurized in the chamber, similar to deep sea diving, where