For years, researchers and clinicians have been trying to find a way to rapidly deliver oxygen to patients when traditional means of oxygenation are difficult or ineffective during critical moments of cardiac or respiratory arrest.
Sometimes, hypoxemia caused by airway obstruction or lung disease can be so severe that methods to boost low-oxygen levels (including the placement of a breathing tube) are ineffective. A patient can have cardiac arrest, potentially leading to severe organ damage. Research has shown that as many as 40% of in-hospital cardiac arrests are triggered by low-oxygen levels.
After 15 years of research, Boston Children’s cardiologist John Kheir, MD, and researcher Yifeng Peng, Ph.D., believe they have developed a safe and effective oxygen delivery method for those emergencies: injectable oxygen carried into the bloodstream by a rapidly dissolving gas microbubble.
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