Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBO)

The Center for Wound Healing and Hyperbaric Medicine has brought hyperbaric oxygen therapy into the mainstream of the wound and nonemergent treatment modalities. Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy has proven effective for nonhealing wounds, osteomyelitis that does not respond to standard treatment, problem surgical wounds, diabetic leg and foot ulcers, and skin grafts and flaps. Hyperbaric Oxygen is also helpful with patients experiencing complications from radiation therapy. 

What to Expect During HBO

During Hyperbaric Oxygen treatment, patients breathe 100% oxygen in a monoplace pressurized chamber allowing for maximized
healing. Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy is beneficial because it stimulates the growth of new blood vessels and increases oxygenation that can arrest certain types of infection and enhance wound healing. HBO is a supplemental therapy to be used in addition to current medical and surgical therapy. Transcutaneous Oxygen Monitoring: (TcPO2) The Center for Wound Healing and Hyperbaric Medicine provides a tool for monitoring oxygen tensions. Transcutaneous oximetry has gained importance as a non-invasive tool for predicting potential candidates for hyperbaric oxygen therapy.

Clinicians use this data as an aid in vascular assessment to help predict non-responders to treatment and to determine level of oxygen profusion to the affected limb. This data is also used to select candidates for Hyperbaric Oxygen by identifying the lack of oxygen in the tissue, and their response to an oxygen challenge.

This proven technology has been utilized in the United States for over thirty years. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy is defined as a treatment modality that exposes a patient to 100 percent oxygen at a pressure greater than atmospheric pressure. 

As an adjunct to the current 85 percent wound healing rate at the Center for Wound Healing, this new technology increases oxygen levels stimulating the formation of new capillaries on poorly perfused wound, providing a highly useful adjunctive treatment modality for the treatment of chronic non-healing wounds and certain infectious process.

Dr. Stephen Levine and the Hyperbaric Oxygen Chamber