Department’s Recent Publication in Nature Reviews Cardiology

Collaboration from the Departments of Anesthesiology, Critical Care and Pain Medicine and Internal Medicine on the role of oxygen therapy in cardiovascular diseases recently was published in Nature Reviews Cardiology (Impact Factor 49.4).  The authors included Yafen Liang, MD, PhD; Wei Ruan, MD, PhD; Yandong Jiang, MD, PhD; Xiaoyi Yuan, PhD; and Eltzschig, PhD, MD, from the Department of Anesthesiology, Critical Care, and Pain Medicine, and Richard Smalling, MD from the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine.

 

In this landmark review, entitled “Interplay of Hypoxia-Inducible Factors and Oxygen Therapy in Cardiovascular Medicine“, the authors first provided numerous perspectives on the systemic and molecular oxygen homeostasis and the pathophysiological consequences of excessive oxygen use. In addition, they reviewed the findings from multiple large-scale clinical trials on oxygen therapy for myocardial ischaemia, cardiac arrest, heart failure and cardiac surgery. These clinical studies have prompted a shift from liberal oxygen supplementation to a more conservative and vigilant approach to oxygen therapy. Furthermore, they discussed the alternative therapeutic strategies that target oxygen-sensing pathways, including various preconditioning approaches and pharmacological HIF activators, that can be used regardless of the level of oxygen therapy that a patient is already receiving.

Based on these preclinical and clinical studies, the authors found that oxygen, a most commonly used medication in modern medicine, does not have a universally safe dose range for different cardiovascular diseases. A conservative rather than liberal approach should be applied in many cardiovascular diseases.

More information can be found here.

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