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Swedish study finds patients on oxygen die less often from respiratory disease, more from heart disease
About.com
Many people with COPD use long-term oxygen therapy (LTOT) to manage hypoxemia that occurs due to the disease. New research from Sweden suggests that people who use LTOT are more at risk of dying from heart disease and other non-respiratory illnesses than they are of COPD.
For the study, researchers monitored 7,628 adult patients with COPD who used LTOT between January 1987 and December 2004. During the course of the study, 5,497 patients died and their causes of death reviewed.
Researchers discovered that the risk of death annually from lung disease and lung cancer actually decreased, while the risk of death from circulatory disease and digestive organ disease increased, by 2.8% and 7.8% respectively. The overall risk of death increased by 1.6% each year and, between 1987 and 2004, the risk of death from heart disease increased by 61.5 percent.
