By Andrew M. Seaman NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Despite past
clinical trials demonstrating that exposure to pure oxygen can
help stubborn wounds heal, a large new study of diabetes
patients with severe foot ulcers finds no benefit from oxygen
treatments and possibly some harm. Researchers following more
than 6,000 diabetes patients receiving treatment for deep foot
wounds found that patients who got oxygen-chamber treatments
along with standard wound care were no more likely to heal and
more than twice as likely to undergo amputations as those
getting standard care alone. The results, published in the
journal Diabetes Care, surprised the study team from the
University of Pennsylvania, not least because they defy so much
previous research. "We really thought we would see a replication
of what occurred in the randomized trials. The data demonstrates
that didn't come to pass," said Dr. Stephen Thom, a professor at
the Perelman School of Medicine in Philadelphia who worked on
the study. For more than 20 years, pe