Transcutaneous oxygen measurements predict healing of leg wounds with hyperbaric therapy

Twenty-six patients with chronic leg wounds had transcutaneous oxygen measurements taken from the peri-wound area and a chest reference site before undergoing hyperbaric oxygen therapy in order to evaluate the utility of transcutaneous oxygen measurements in predicting the response of wounds to hyperbaric therapy. Wound scores and wound areas were determined before treatment and after 10 hyperbaric exposures. Patients whose wounds averaged a 5% or greater reduction in wound score per treatment were designated "responders." Nine patients' wounds exhibited at least a 5% reduction in wound score per treatment. There were no differences observed between responders and the 17 nonresponders in age, duration of the wound, initial wound area, initial wound score, or in wound or reference transcutaneous oxygen measurements. Responders required significantly fewer treatments to achieve wound closure than did nonresponders. Peri-wound transcutaneous oxygen pressure when the patient was exposed to 2.4 atmospheres absolute correlated directly with the improvement in wound score per treatment (r = 0.64, p = 0.03). An inverse correlation was noted between surface peri-wound transcutaneous oxygen pressure and improvement in wound score per treatment (r = -0.74, p = 0.006). Elevated peri-wound transcutaneous oxygen measurements at 2.4 atmospheres absolute and reduced peri-wound oxygen measurements at 1 atmosphere absolute were associated with a more rapid response to hyperbaric oxygen treatments in patients with chronic leg wounds. The use of these measurements should allow this expensive and time-consuming therapy to be limited to those patients most likely to benefit.