Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy for Lung Transplantation

Overview

The objective of this study is to evaluate the effect of hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) on airway complications in post-lung transplant recipients with evidence of restricted levels of blood and oxygen in the airway tissue. Study subjects with extensive airway tissue damage in the early post-transplant period will be randomized to HBOT or usual care and followed clinically for 12 months following randomization. The investigators hypothesize that HBOT will decrease the number of airway complications in the treated subjects.

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) will be performed with the standard HBOT protocol used at Duke for the treatment of compromised grafts and flaps. This is 2 hours of breathing \>99% medical grade oxygen inside an air-pressurized chamber at atmospheric pressure of 2 once a day for 20 sessions. These sessions will be scheduled 3-5 times per week, depending on the availability of the patient and the hyperbaric medicine physician. The HBOT procedure used for this study will be identical to that used for clinical practice in the Duke University Health System Center for Hyperbaric Medicine and Environmental Physiology, including the oxygen that is used in the chamber. Patients will receive treatment through the regular clinical hyperbaric service. These are routine, not special, treatment sessions and they will receive them alongside other Duke University Medical Center patients being treated for other reasons. The medical grade oxygen used is a part of the Duke University Health System Center for Hyperbaric Medicine and Environmental Physiology hyperbaric chamber system. While the patients randomized to receive usual care will not undergo HBOT, both study groups will receive standard serial bronchoscopies for airway clearance and for the collection of bronchoalveolar lavage fluid for culture data, due to the high rate of infection in lung transplant patients. All subjects will undergo the standard surveillance bronchoscopies every 3 to 4 weeks (x3) for clearance of the exudate from the airway, as well as monitoring progression of the airway abnormalities. As participants in this study, an, endobronchial biopsy of the airway epithelium will be performed at the main carina to collect a sample of recipient epithelium as well as at the first subcarina for each donor lung. Three samples will be collected from each of the biopsy sites. These samples are small (1 to 2 mm) and are thought to have a minimal clinical risk of minor bleeding associated with the procedure. Biopsy will add roughly 3 minutes total to each procedure.