In the quest to find innovative cancer treatments, a remarkable contender has emerged—hyperbaric oxygen therapy.
What’s Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy?
Hyperbaric medical therapy began in 1662 by placing patients in a pressurized chamber with regular air, but it would be another 100-plus years before pure oxygen was routinely used.Since then, it has been studied extensively and is currently approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for several specific conditions, including wound care, radiation injury, and more. Research and clinical trials are ongoing, exploring its potential applications for many other conditions such as COVID-19 and long COVID.
Hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) places patients in a pressurized chamber that’s then filled with pure oxygen (95 percent or more) to an atmospheric pressure that’s 1.4 to three times higher than normal. The air we breathe contains about 21 percent oxygen.
Why It’s Beneficial
Every cell in our body relies on oxygen for survival and well-being, particularly when illness or injury hinders tissue from getting enough oxygen.
The article also notes that while a little bit of hypoxia can be good for our health during early development or when we’re occasionally exposed to it, most of the time, it’s bad for our cells and can lead to many diseases. That’s why oxygen is considered a potential treatment for people with various short- or long-term health issues.
HBOT and Cancer
Currently, using HBOT as a part of cancer therapy isn’t FDA-approved, but there have been some hopeful findings in recent studies on different types of cancer, including leukemia, breast cancer, brain tumors, prostate cancer, head and neck cancer, colorectal cancer, cervical cancer, and bladder cancer, according to the Medicina review.Treatment
A 2007 study published in Leukemia Research looked at how HBOT at 2.5 to 3.5 atmospheric pressure with 100 percent oxygen for six hours affected different types of cancer cells in terms of apoptosis, a process of programmed cell death. The researchers used different cell lines, including blood-related cells and nonblood cells.Researchers found that the hematopoietic cells underwent a significant amount of programmed cell death (apoptosis) because of the treatment.
The results suggest that hematopoietic cancer cells are more sensitive to oxidative stress induced by high-pressure oxygen treatment than nonhematopoietic cancer cells. Also, the study notes that the amount of oxygen and the pressure seem to be important factors in causing apoptosis in the cancer cells.
The goal was to see how HBOT influenced the growth of these different types of breast cells.
The study found that HBOT inhibited the growth of all four types of breast cells studied and that the effect was more pronounced the longer the cells were exposed to HBOT.
Other conditions such as high oxygen levels alone or increased atmospheric pressure also slowed down cell growth, but HBOT had the most significant effect.
It also found that HBOT worked even better when combined with certain cancer drugs, making them more effective at inhibiting cell growth. The authors also noted that the inhibitory effects of HBOT were still noticeable two weeks after exposure.
In an additional experiment, the researchers took it a step further by combining HBOT therapy with a chemotherapy agent in a separate group of mice. The outcome demonstrated a reduction in tumor volume within two weeks with the combined approach.
Mitigating Damage Caused by Radiation and Chemotherapy
Radiation therapy is a common treatment for cancer, but it can cause damage to healthy tissues and organs.Almost all tissues affected by these delayed radiation injuries show a specific type of tissue damage that includes low oxygen, poor blood supply, and reduced cell presence, according to the Medicina review.
Endothelial Injury and Vascular Damage
HBOT has been shown to repair damage and promote the growth of new blood vessels, as well as endothelial cells that line blood vessels, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine literature on HBOT.Vascular Disease
HBOT can help reduce the risk of vascular disease by improving blood flow and oxygen delivery to the tissues.Hypoxia
HBOT can help mitigate the effects of hypoxia by increasing the amount of oxygen delivered to the tissues, as noted in the study mentioned above.HBOT is also shown to help mitigate damage from chemotherapy. Some of the documented benefits covered in the Medicina review include the following:
HBOT has been shown to be effective in preventing chemotherapy-induced neuropathy, which is a common side effect of chemotherapy.
The combination of chemotherapy with HBOT has been found to significantly reduce mortality in animal cancer models, such as osteosarcoma and lung cancer.
Approved Uses of HBOT
The FDA provides the following list of conditions that HBOT can be marketed for:- Air and gas bubbles in blood vessels
- Anemia (severe anemia when blood transfusions can’t be used)
- Burns (severe and large burns treated at a specialized burn center)
- Carbon monoxide poisoning
- Crush injury
- Decompression sickness (diving risk)
- Gas gangrene
- Hearing loss (complete hearing loss that occurs suddenly and without any known cause)
- Infection of the skin and bone (severe)
- Radiation injury
- Skin graft flap at risk of tissue death
- Vision loss (when sudden and painless in one eye due to blockage of blood flow)
- Wounds (nonhealing, diabetic foot ulcers)
Unapproved Uses of HBOT
The Cleveland Clinic overview on HBOT provides the following list of conditions that alternative medicine centers claim HBOT helps treat:- Age-related symptoms or conditions (anti-aging)
- Autism spectrum disorder
- COVID-19
- Cerebral palsy
- HIV and AIDS
- Depression
- Strokes
- Hair loss (alopecia)
- Migraine headaches
- Sports injuries
Possible Side Effects
Possible side effects as documented by the Cleveland Clinic include the following:- Sinus congestion
- Middle ear injuries
- Temporary nearsightedness
- Oxygen poisoning
- Claustrophobia
- Seizures (rare cases)
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