Toppers: Our 10 Most Popular Stories of 2011

As the year quickly draws to a close, we're thankful for our loyal readers, and for new ones every day. We will work hard to keep bringing you evidence-based hyperbaric oxygen therapy news in the year ahead. Sometimes we hit on a topic, share a video, or link to a story that really strikes a chord. Here's a list of our most popular stories of 2011, in descending order, according to Blogger.

Arthritis: Gout Awareness Day

TBI: Concussion Tests Doing More Harm Than Good?

Should Your Hyperbaric Physician Be Board Certified?

Gingrich Slips HBOT into the Obamacare News Cycle

Hello, Cleveland: HBOT Gets the Plain Deal

HBOT for Radiation Injury of No Use in Nuclear Disaster

National Healing and Diversified to Merge

College Football: New Data on Concussion by Position

Restorix Health Mixes It Up in Greater Seattle

Pioneering Frogman Invented, Named SCUBA

Cheers and best wishes for the New Year.

Keepers: Our Top 10 Favorite Posts of 2011

In 2011 we posted 136 blog entries. Every day we scour the hyperbaric business and science news. Often we're inspired to share the news with you. Sometimes we hit on a topic, share a video, or link to a story that really reminds us why we do this. Here's a quick selection of favorites you may have missed or may wish to read again.

Quad Cities Homeless Man Gets HBOT for Frostbite

FDA Urges Caution in Negative Pressure Wound Therapy

Evidence-based HBOT: Trust It or Trash It?

Evidence-based HBOT Is Not CAM

Mixing Hyperbaric Oxygen with Other Prescription Drugs

HyperbaricLink: The Only HONcode Certified Website Focused Exclusively on Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy

HBOT Program Oversight: Exposé Makes Good Points

VIDEO: Fire Suppression Test of USC Catalina Chamber, Avalon, California

CRAO: Fast Intervention with Hyperbaric Oxygen Helps Save Student's Eyesight

Serious Carbon Monoxide Poisoning Risk from Ice Resurfacing Equipment at Indoor Rinks

We thank you for your readership and participation in the year past, and we look forward to bringing you even more evidence-based hyperbaric oxygen therapy news in the year ahead.

Horse Rescued from Starvation, Trauma, and (Thanks to Hyperbaric Oxygen) Life-threatening Bone Infection

Horse lovers will want to jump immediately to the after photo of Baby Girl, the buckskin quarter horse, pictured right. Read her complete story, "Horse beats odds: From skin and bones to full of health," in The Gainesville Sun. The 2-year-old filly was suffering from starvation and blunt force trauma complicated by an "aggressive" infection of the jaw and skull. With advanced imaging and hyperbaric oxygen treatment for bone infection, or osteomyelitis, veterinarians at the University of Florida Large Animal Hospital and Kesmarc Florida, an equine sports rehabilitation center in Ocala, were able to save Baby Girl. Now she's the very picture of health.

[Photo: The Gainesville Sun]

Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI): FDA Clears Handheld Device for Early Detection

One more short TBI post before moving on. The FDA has approved the first handheld device to detect bleeding in the brain. Marketed by InfraScan, Inc, of Philadelphia, the Infrascanner™ is a mobile medical imaging system for detecting hematomas, or swelling of clotted blood, in the brain. The noninvasive device uses near-infrared (NIR) optical tomography and displays images on a normal portable digital assistant (PDA). Research on the unit was initiated and funded by the Office of Naval Research (ONR). Read the ONR press release, "Naval Technology Could be a Lifesaver." This news also led us to explore a couple TBI resources, BrainLine.org and the VA Polytrauma System of Care, both new to us and full of reliable information.

[Photo: InfraScan, Inc.]

Hyperbaric Oxygen for TBI: Some Clinical Evidence New and Forthcoming

In quick follow-up to yesterday's post ("Former NFL Player Battles Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy") we refer readers to the latest findings from ongoing clinical trials on hyperbaric oxygen for traumatic brain injury (TBI).

Publishing in the Journal of Neurotrauma in November, Harch, et al, treated 16 military subjects with TBI, postconcussion syndrome, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and found "significant improvements occurred in symptoms, abnormal physical exam findings, cognitive testing, and quality-of-life measurements, with concomitant significant improvements in SPECT." Subjects received 40 one-hour sessions of hyperbaric oxygen therapy at 1.5 ATA over 30 days. Treatment commenced nearly three years after injuries caused by improvised explosive device (IED) and rocket-propelled grenade explosions.

This is important scientific work. These are noteworthy clinical findings. But once again these investigators get carried away with the publicity. Note the adjectives in their December 5 news release: "groundbreaking," "prestigious," "stunning," "major," "remarkable." And they conclude that their "study argues strongly for the immediate application of HBOT 1.5 to hundreds of thousands of veterans"—a mighty bold claim for a preliminary report on a pilot trial in 16 patients. Harch is study chair of the ongoing National Brain Injury Rescue and Rehabilitation Project (NBIRR), an observational study of 1,000 patients begun in April 2010 and scheduled for completion in April 2014. We eagerly await the published results.

Other government-funded studies of HBOT for TBI now face serious political opposition. Read our 13 July 2011 post, "DCoE Faces Tough GAO Scrutiny." CLICK HERE to review all our previous coverage of hyperbaric oxygen for traumatic brain injury.

For a sobering perspective on the breadth of the clinical and political challenges surrounding TBI and PTSD, we also direct your attention to yesterday's year-end review of the excellent Brain Wars series. Read "Military Still Struggling to Treat Troops with Brain Injuries" on the ProPublica website.

[Illustration: Al Granberg, ProPublica]

Hyperbaric Oxygen for TBI: Former NFL Player Battles Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE)

With championship football in full swing, we submit this cautionary tale of former University of Colorado and San Francisco 49ers defensive tackle George Visger. Visger suffers from hydrocephalus, or water on the brain, after a career filled with hard blows to the head. More generally, his condition is a form of traumatic brain injury (TBI) called chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). Today he says he'd give up his Super Bowl ring and wishes he'd never played the sport.

Now the controversial part. Visger is receiving HBOT at the Hyperbaric Oxygen Clinic of Sacramento. We've grown wary of publicity generated by the clinic's Dr Kenneth P. Stoller, especially surrounding sensational cases of so-called vaccine injury, a bogus public health crisis. Hyperbaric oxygen is not indicated for the treatment of TBI or CTE, nor do we find any high-quality clinical evidence to support the claims made here. Still, it is encouraging to see Visger apparently enjoying some symptom relief with hyperbaric oxygen.

Read more about Visger's journey in "Battle scars" on Recordnet.com, website of The Record, covering Stockton and San Joaquin County, California. Click play to watch the long (10:47) video below. Despite our reservations about the clinical evidence on HBOT for CTE, this personal profile is undeniably moving and worth a watch.

Serious Carbon Monoxide Poisoning Risk from Ice Resurfacing Equipment at Indoor Rinks

Hockey is a violent sport. Figure skaters fall hard. But perhaps the greatest danger at the community ice rink is the Zamboni. This morning the NBC Today Show aired some new twists on a story you often see this time of year, about the threat of carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning at indoor rinks. One full hour after the ice was resurfaced, instruments recorded high levels of CO and investigators evacuated the building. Click play to watch the video below.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has plainly said, "Do not operate gasoline-powered engines in confined spaces." Electric ice resurfacers have replaced gasoline-powered machines in some communities. Still, there's no substitute for working carbon monoxide detectors and proper ventilation. More data and recommendations in this excellent paper [Occup Environ Med 2002;59:224-233 doi:10.1136/oem.59.4.224] from 2002.

Only three states—Massachusetts, Minnesota, and Rhode Island—regulate air quality at indoor rinks.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: 2009 XMRV Paper Fully Retracted

Editors of the journal Science yesterday retracted the 2009 study that alleged the XMRV virus caused chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). Early on, like so many others, we got a little swept away by this story. Catch up on our previous coverage. Learn more on Retraction Watch, one of favorite blogs.

Decompression Sickness: Hyperbaric Oxygen at NASA

Today we ran across this NASA photo from @Cmdr_Hadfield in Houston, Texas, whose Twitter profile reads: "Mission specialist on STS-74 and performed multiple EVAs on STS-100. Currently training as the commander of Expedition 35." Here he tweets: "NASA's hyperbaric chamber—in case of bubbles in our blood after a long dive. Ready to save a life." Learn more about Commander Chris Hadfield on the Canadian Space Agency website. He's off to the International Space Station via Soyuz rocket in November 2012.

Hyperbaric Oxygen for Autism: Evidence-based News and Further Reading

We've been watching with great interest the recent kerfuffle at Meadowlands Hospital Medical Center, Secaucus, New Jersey, surrounding the use of mild hyperbaric oxygen therapy for children with autism. November 27 the Star-Ledger posted "Questions, risks surround hyperbaric chamber treatments for autistic children," reporting that the New Jersey state Department of Health would rule in January whether the hospital "should be allowed to offer this experimental and controversial treatment." Just five days later appeared "Meadowlands Hospital Medical Center pulls out of request to use controversial autism treatment" in the same paper. Good call. Let's chalk this up as (1) a victory for evidence-based hyperbaric medicine and (2) another moving family story to inspire legitimate clinical investigators to get to work.

As we read and study for our long-overdue autism page update, we've run across some more required reading for anyone interested in this important and fascinating subject. "The prevalence puzzle: Autism counts" in Nature [479, 22-24 (2011)] looks thoughtfully at whether the rise in autism is due to heightened awareness, better diagnosis, or actual incidence. Last week the Los Angeles Times ran "Discovering Autism," an excellent four-part series covering very similar ground.

[Image: Nature]

Off the Football Field and Into the Hyperbaric Chamber

Here in Chicagoland we know it's way too late in the season to save the Bears. But here's hoping Matt Forte finds a speedy recovery in a borrowed hyperbaric oxygen chamber for his Grade 2 sprain of the medial collateral ligament in the right knee. Coaches and trainers aim to get him back into the lineup by Christmas. Read "Forte doing all he can to heal quickly: Bears running back using ex-teammate's hyperbaric chamber" in the Chicago Tribune. Forte is using a chamber owned by defensive tackle Tommie Harris of the San Diego Chargers. The article names the more prominent NFL players using HBOT (or too often, mild HBOT) for performance enhancement and postinjury rehabilitation.

UHMS Accredits Hyperbaric Medicine at San Jacinto Methodist Hospital, Baytown, Texas

The wound care and hyperbaric medicine program at San Jacinto Methodist Hospital in Baytown, Texas, has received accreditation from the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society (UHMS). The hospital-based center is the second to be accredited in the Houston metropolitan area. Read more in Liberty County's The Vindicator. Learn more about facility accreditation in our UHMS profile and on the UHMS website.

[Photo: San Jacinto Methodist Hospital website]

New on HyperbaricLink: Hyperbaric Oxygen for Smoke Inhalation

Today we have added smoke inhalation to our Diseases and Conditions section. Smoke inhalation is the leading cause of death related to fire. During structure fires, especially, the combustion of plastics, textiles, and other synthetic materials produces a highly toxic mix of cyanide and carbon monoxide. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) is indicated for the emergency treatment of carbon monoxide poisoning complicated by cyanide poisoning after smoke inhalation.

HBOT gives the emergency physician a powerful option for treating smoke inhalation. But ready access to properly equipped and competently staffed hyperbaric treatment centers is spotty, at best. From our commentary:

The emergency treatment of smoke inhalation offers perhaps the single best reason for the healthcare community to demand 24/7 access to hyperbaric chambers across the US. Cyanide, carbon monoxide, inhaled particulates, and thermal injuries together require speedy action to save the lives of firefighters and other fire victims. Ongoing surveillance projects and prospective trials may bolster the clinical case for HBOT in the routine treatment of smoke inhalation.

We urge swift and concerted political action, as well, and will ramp up our support of the hyperbaric and emergency medical communities in the months and years ahead.

Our new page includes more carefully selected links to trustworthy patient and clinical resources. We also recommend the excellent Young Men and Fire by Norman Maclean.

[Photo: A Firefighters Own Worst Enemy blog]

UHMS Accredits Hyperbaric Medicine at Lancaster General Health, Lancaster, Pennsylvania

Wound care and hyperbaric services at Lancaster General Health, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, has received accreditation from the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society (UHMS). The outpatient medical facility is located in the Suburban Outpatient Pavilion. Learn more about facility accreditation in our UHMS profile and on the UHMS website.

[Photo: Lancaster General Health website]