Katz AA, Wainwright S, Kelly MP, Albert P, Byrne R, et al.
Frontiers in medicine. Date of publication 2024 Feb 15;volume 11():1354088.
1. Front Med (Lausanne). 2024 Feb 15;11:1354088. doi: 10.3389/fmed.2024.1354088.
eCollection 2024.
Hyperbaric oxygen effectively addresses the pathophysiology of long COVID:
clinical review.
Katz AA(1)(2), Wainwright S(3), Kelly MP(4), Albert P(2), Byrne R(1).
Author information:
(1)Hyperbaric Medical Solutions, New York, NY, United States.
(2)Orlando College of Osteopathic Medicine, Winter Garden, FL, United States.
(3)Greenwich Hospital, Yale New Haven Health System, New Haven, CT, United
States.
(4)University of Alabama at Birmingham, Heersink School of Medicine, Birmingham,
AL, United States.
BACKGROUND: The World Health Organization defines long COVID as "the
continuation or development of new symptoms 3 months after the initial
SARS-CoV-2 infection, with these symptoms lasting for at least 2 months with no
other explanation." Estimations of approximately 50 million individuals suffer
from long COVID, reporting low health-related quality of life. Patients develop
ongoing persistent symptoms that continue for more than 12 weeks that are not
explained by another alternative diagnosis. To date, no current therapeutics are
effective in treating the underlying pathophysiology of long COVID.
DISCUSSION: A comprehensive literature search using PubMed and Google Scholar
was conducted and all available articles from November 2021 to January 2024
containing keywords long covid and hyperbaric oxygen were reviewed. These
published studies, including case series and randomized trials, demonstrate that
utilizing Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBO) provided significant improvement in
patients with long COVID.
CONCLUSION: A large cohort of patients suffer from long COVID or post-COVID-19
syndrome after recovery from their acute infection with no effective treatment
options. HBO is a safe treatment and may provide benefit for this population and
should continue to be researched for adjunctive treatment of long COVID.
Copyright © 2024 Katz, Wainwright, Kelly, Albert and Byrne.
DOI: 10.3389/fmed.2024.1354088
PMCID: PMC10916685
PMID: 38449882
Conflict of interest statement: The authors declare that the research was
conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could
be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
