A nationwide system of long-term oxygen therapy: the Polish experience

Poland's Institute of Tuberculosis and Lung Diseases oversees 49 provincial clinics, which provide and monitor LTOT for patients with COPD, interstitial pulmonary fibrosis, and other pulmonary conditions. Because of limited resources, eligibility for LTOT is fairly strictly defined, and LTOT equipment is distributed to and retained only by nonsmoking patients who continue to demonstrate need of the equipment (i.e., those who have ongoing hypoxemia that can benefit from LTOT). This national LTOT system provides a large, nonselected population suitable for LTOT research, and recent studies have produced important data regarding survival, pulmonary hemodynamics, and the effect of withdrawing LTOT from patients whose oxygenation has recovered to above the LTOT qualification level of PaO2 < or = 55 mm Hg.