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Hello,

We are working up a 61 year old male for STRN, for a non-healing ulcer to the vertex of his scalp. (radiation was November 2022) He is currently on on taxol , carboplatin and Ketruda immunotherapy. His last treatment for Chemotherapy will be 9-14-23 but he will continue with Ketruda for 9 more months. Is there any information that you can share regarding any guidelines?

Thanks so much,
Lisa Fischer
Sep 11, 2023 by Lisa Fischer, LVN
2 replies
Mike White
MD, UHM, MMM, CWS

Lisa,

This is a great question. We frequently see patients needing HBO on drugs that may be contraindicated in the HBO environment. Baude and Cooper did a good review of the commonly contraindicated chemotherapy drugs in the HBO environment (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK560873/). These drugs include. Bleomycin, Doxarubicin, Cis-Platnin. Additionaly, Gawdi and Cooper (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK557661/) list additional drugs should not be used in conjunction with HBO, Disulfram and Mafenide.  Amiodarone is also a questionable drug that is typically treated similarly to Bleomycin in the hyperbaric environment. As to your question, I could not find anything specific on Keytruda safety in the hyperbaric environment. There have been research trials using Carboplatin and HBO as well as other chemotherapy agents as a treatment for non-small cell lung cancer. For Cis-platin given WITH HBO, the main negative effect is with wound healing (fibroblast collagen production).  The reported half life of Carboplatin I found was 30 hours, so you may want to wait at least one week and maybe up to 2 weeks after the last dose of Carboplatin to begin HBO. Finally, for completeness, you may want to get input from the patients Heme/Onc Physician with respect to the Keytruda.

Sep 20, 2023
Thank you so much for all your information! We really appreciate it .
Sep 20, 2023
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