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Brother, Have You Got A Light? Assessing The Need For Intubation In Patients Sustaining Burn Injury Secondary To Home Oxygen Therapy., Hamed Amani, Daniel Lozano, Sigrid Blome-Eberwein

Sigrid A Blome-Eberwein MD

Home oxygen therapy use has steadily increased for the past 30 years. A majority of these patients suffer from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease secondary to smoking. Although warned of the danger of smoking while on oxygen, patients continue to do so, potentially resulting in cutaneous burns and suspected inhalation injury. Those suspected of inhalation injury are intubated for airway control. In the English literature, there is a paucity of data discussing the need for intubation. To date, this is the largest study to determine whether intubated patients had inhalation injury as observed by bronchoscopy and whether intubation was necessary. All …