[Home oxygen therapy for terminal lung cancer cases]

Home oxygen therapy (HOT) was introduced as part of the terminal care of 52 lung cancer patients attending our hospital from 1997 to 2000, all of whom subsequently died from their illnesses. We administered a questionnaire about HOT to their bereaved family members. The results confirmed that many of those interviewed thought that HOT improved their quality of life, but probably made the patients more aware of the progression of their disease. As the incidence of lung cancer has been increasing, lung cancer patients have begun to form an increasing proportion of patients receiving HOT in recent years. In addition, the number of patients with a PaO2 of > or = 60 torr at rest at the start of HOT has been increasing. It may be necessary when dealing with terminal lung cancer patients, in whom PaO2 can decrease rapidly over a relatively short period of time, to explore indication criteria for HOT different from those conventionally employed.