Hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) might be most easily recognized as the technology used to treat the "bends" or decompression sickness in divers. Its use as a medical treatment for humans is not new, but has undergone a resurgence in recent years. Many medical schools now have hyperbaric centers, and there is a list of Medicare-approved conditions for which HBOT is considered appropriate.

How does HBOT work? It involves increasing the amount of oxygen dissolved in the blood by breathing in oxygen under pressure. This is accomplished by the patient being placed in a chamber that can be pressurized. For humans, this can be a single-person or multi-person chamber. Oxygen is considered a drug, and appropriate dosages and protocols are recommended for different conditions.

The first point for consideration is that HBOT might help salvage injured tissue. If injured tissue can be salvaged, much of the recovery time can be shortened and functional tissue might be saved that would ordinarily be lost. With injury, many times some amount of tissue will lose enough blood supply to die and slough, and the process of wound healing is prolonged by the time required for the body to "clean up" this dead tissue and heal by scar formation. This same issue occurs in bone infections where the body may have to reabsorb dead bone before healing can occur.

The second area where HBOT is showing effectiveness is on the body's infection-fighting capabilities. HBOT has been shown to enhance white blood cells' ability to kill bacteria, and it also may enhance the activity of certain antibiotics. These actions, acting in concert, might provide the body with added benefit in fighting infections in a variety of tissues