Long-Term Oxygen Therapy 24 vs 15 h/day and Mortality in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

Long-term oxygen therapy (LTOT) ≥ 15 h/day improves survival in hypoxemic chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). LTOT 24 h/day is often recommended but may pose an unnecessary burden with no clear survival benefit compared with LTOT 15 h/day. The aim was to test the hypothesis that LTOT 24 h/day decreases all-cause, respiratory, and cardiovascular mortality compared to LTOT 15 h/day in hypoxemic COPD. This was a prospective, observational, population-based study of COPD patients starting LTOT between October 1, 2005 and June 30, 2009 in Sweden. Overall and cause-specific mortality was analyzed using Cox and Fine-Gray regression, controlling for age, sex, prescribed oxygen dose, PaO2 (air), PaCO2 (air), Forced Expiratory Volume in one second (FEV1), WHO performance status, body mass index, comorbidity, and oral glucocorticoids. A total of 2,249 included patients were included with a median follow-up of 1.1 years (interquartile range, 0.6-2.1). 1,129 (50%) patients died and no patient was lost to follow-up. Higher LTOT duration analyzed as a continuous variable was not associated with any change in mortality rate (hazard ratio [HR] 1.00; (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.98 to 1.02) per 1 h/day increase above 15 h/day. LTOT exactly 24 h/day was prescribed in 539 (24%) patients and LTOT 15-16 h/day in 1,231 (55%) patients. Mortality was similar between the groups for all-cause, respiratory and cardiovascular mortality. In hypoxemic COPD, LTOT 24 h/day was not associated with a survival benefit compared with treatment 15-16 h/day. A design for a registry-based randomized trial (R-RCT) is proposed.