Ambulatory Oxygen Therapy in COPD Patients with Oxygen Desaturation during Exercise

Abstract

Desaturation during exercise is no longer an anecdote or medical curiosity but has converted into a marker of poor prognosis. Patients with COPD who undergo rapid or early desaturation during the six-minute walking test will have major clinical repercussions than those with late-onset desaturation. Only the patients who exhibit desaturation within the first minute of the walk test, the so-called early desaturators, also experience desaturation during their daily activities. Those who desaturate past 3.5 min, the late desaturators, do not undergo desaturation in their daily life activities. Moreover, the former will require long-term oxygen therapy sooner than the late-onset group. It seems reasonable to assume that early desaturators will benefit from ambulatory oxygen therapy, as they will desaturate during their activities of daily living. Late-onset desaturators will not experience oxygen desaturation in their daily lives. Consequently, they would not benefit from oxygen therapy while walking around. However, depending on the individual case and their activity, those intermediate desaturators—with an onset between 1 and 3.3 min—may go through desaturation at home.