science

Medical gas therapy

Medical gas therapy is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Medical gas therapy rather than just read about it. In short: Medical gas therapy is a treatment involving the administration of various gases. It has been used in medicine since the use of oxygen therapy.

Key takeaways

Medical gas therapy belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Medical gas therapy to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Medical gas therapy from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Medical gas therapy is a treatment involving the administration of various gases. It has been used in medicine since the use of oxygen therapy. Most of these gases are drugs, including oxygen. Many other gases, collectively known as factitious airs, were explored for medicinal value in the late eighteenth century. In addition to oxygen, medical gases include nitric oxide (NO), and helium-O2 mixtures (Heliox). Careful considerations and close monitoring needed when medical gases are in use. For the purpose of this article only gas mixtures are described.

Gas mixtures therapies

Nitric oxide

Nitric oxide is a substance that our body produces in its every cell and in its every organ. It has a number of functions. It take part in vasodilation, platelet inhibition, immune regulation, enzyme regulation, and neurotransmission. Inhaled nitric oxide is a gas that is inhaled. It was initially described in 1987 as an "endothelial-derived relaxing factor" and has since been used to treat pulmonary disorders. It works by relaxing smooth muscle to widen (dilate) blood vessels, especially in the lungs. Inhaled nitric oxide selects only pulmonary smooth muscles. There will be no effect or minimal effect of inhaled nitric oxide on atelectatic or fluid-filled lung. It improves oxygenation and decreases pulmonary hypertension. Nitric oxide is used together with a mechanical ventilator to treat respiratory failure in premature infants. In adults nitric oxide can be used in treating pulmonary hypertension with acute respiratory distress syndrome. Thanks to the possible clinical successful outcomes of nitric oxide treatment patients can avoid need for extracorporeal membrane oxygenation treatment. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has been approved the use of nitric oxide in term and near-term (greater than 34 weeks' gestation age) neonates with hypoxic respiratory failure with clinical or echocardiographic evidence of pulmonary hypertension.

Contraindications Nitric oxide must not be used in neonates who depend on right-to-left shunting of blood.

Dosing of nitric oxide Dose needed to achieve desired effect but avoid toxicity and adverse effects in neonates and adults is relatively low. Usually it is 5-20 ppm (parts per million). Regular arterial blood gas tests needed to assess the response to the therapy and signs of toxicity. Improvement in partial pressure of oxygen (PO2) and oxygen saturation would be indication of positive response to the nitric oxide therapy. If there is an evidence that nitric oxide works the same dose would be used till the hypoxemia and pulmonary hypertension resolved. When the hypoxemia and pulmonary hypertension resolved titration or slowly weaning of the nitric oxide initiates. Abrupt discontinuation of nitric oxide may lead to compromised oxygenation and pulmonary hypertension may rebound.

Side effects of the nitric oxide therapy Methemoglobins level in the blood increases with the use of nitric oxide. Methemoglobin is abnormal form of molecule which can not carry oxygen. Methemoglobin turns blood brown. Other medications can produce methemoglobin too. Monitoring of methemoglobin needed when nitric oxide is in use. Nitric oxide with oxygen (O2) in combination produces another by-product chemical compound nitrogen dioxide (NO2). The higher the oxygen concentration and nitric oxide therapy duration and lower ventilator flow rate the higher amount of NO2 will be produced. NO2 is toxic and its level should always be monitored in nitric oxide therapies. High level of NO2 can lead to cell damage, hemorrhage, pulmonary edema.

Use of nitric oxide in patients with left heart failure or congestive heart failure may lead to pulmonary edema or worsen pulmonary edema.

Nobel Prize for Nitric oxide discoveries Three US scientist - Robert F. Furchgott, PhD, Louis J. Ignarro, PhD, and Ferid Murad, MD, PhD won Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine for their discovery of nitric oxide role in cardiovascular and nervous systems in 1998. Even though the nitric oxide effects on the body known for more than 25 years the clinical use is still in a development.

Helium and oxygen In medicine, Heliox generally refers to a mixture of 21% O2 (the same as air) and 79% He, although other combinations are available. Heliox generates less airway resistance than air and thereby requires less mechanical energy to ventilate the lungs. "Work of Breathing" is reduced. It does this by two mechanisms:

increased tendency to laminar flow reduced resistance in turbulent flow The dry air on the Earth we inhale consists of 78.8% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen and 0.93% argon. Heliox therapy is substitution of nitrogen with helium. Helium itself has no pharmacological value, it does not react in the body. Its only purpose is to make the flow less turbulent and help oxygen to get into the lungs. Less turbulent flow requires less work to breathe.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Medical gas therapy

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Medical gas therapy claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Medical gas therapy before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Medical gas therapy ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Medical gas therapy

In research: Medical gas therapy appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Medical gas therapy in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Medical gas therapy is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Industrial gases, Medical treatments, Pulmonology, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Medical gas therapy outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Medical gas therapy in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Medical gas therapy means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Medical gas therapy out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Medical gas therapy in simple terms?

Medical gas therapy is a treatment involving the administration of various gases. It has been used in medicine since the use of oxygen therapy.

Why does Medical gas therapy matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Medical gas therapy?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Medical gas therapy.