[Percent home stay, an index for the clinical evaluation of home oxygen therapy]

To evaluate the usefulness of % home stay as an index for evaluation of the clinical effects of long term home oxygen therapy (HOT), we retrospectively examined 70 consecutive cases with chronic respiratory failure treated by HOT in the Ogaki area. The clinical data, underlying diseases, and survival rate of the cases were similar to recent official statistics in Japan; thus, we considered these cases to be a representative population. For evaluation, we tentatively used a % home stay of 70% as the standard level, which was determined by the 25th percentile line. To examine the usefulness of this standard, we classified the study population into 2 groups (the group with % home stay of greater than 70% (Group A, n = 54), and the group with % home stay of less than 70% (Group B, n = 16)), and compared the outcomes, survival rates, life situations, and background factors between these groups. As a result, there were significant differences in outcome (at home 34%, hospitalized 11%, and dead 22% in group A, and 6%, 44%, and 50%, respectively in group B, p less than 0.05), survival rate (p less than 0.05 by logrank test), and life situation between these groups. Thus, a % home stay of 70% is thought to be a useful standard for clinical evaluation, because it reflects both the prognosis and quality of life of patients.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)