What Researchers Did
Researchers measured blood counts and iron-storage levels in divers before and after a 28-day saturation dive, and in patients before, during, and after a standard 21-day hyperbaric oxygen treatment series.
What They Found
A clinical study of eight male divers and 16 hyperbaric oxygen patients found that both hyperoxia exposures reduced hemoglobin levels and raised ferritin levels, with larger changes seen after the dive than after the treatment series. Hemoglobin fell by 3.8% (p = 0.023) after the hyperbaric oxygen series and by 10.2% (p = 0.003) after the dive, along with reductions in red cell counts, reticulocyte counts, and hematocrit. Ferritin rose by 29% (p = 0.002) after the hyperbaric oxygen series and by 107% (p less than 0.001) after the dive. Thrombocyte counts and liver-related blood markers did not change in either group.
What This Means for Canadian Patients
This abstract addresses hyperbaric oxygen (HBO2) treatment, describing blood changes measured during a standard 21-day HBO2 course rather than any treatment benefit. The researchers concluded that these hemoglobin and ferritin changes were too small to be of clinical significance for either diving or hyperbaric oxygen treatment.
Canadian Relevance
No direct Canadian connection identified.
Study Limitations
The hyperbaric oxygen patient group was small (16 patients), and the two exposures were not compared to each other with a formal statistical test, so the size of the difference between diving and HBO2 treatment cannot be reliably judged from this abstract alone.