Oxygen Without Lungs
This video features John Kheir from the cardiac PICU at Boston’ Children’s Hospital talking at TEDMED. The talk begins with the story of a tragic PICU case and leads to Kheir explaining his obsession with figuring out how to administer oxygen microparticles intravenously. Fascinating stuff.
John Kheir’s work was featured in Nature last year in an article titled Rabbits kept alive by oxygen injections, based on the paper below:
Abstract
We have developed an injectable foam suspension containing self-assembling, lipid-based microparticles encapsulating a core of pure oxygen gas for intravenous injection. Prototype suspensions were manufactured to contain between 50 and 90 ml of oxygen gas per deciliter of suspension. Particle size was polydisperse, with a mean particle diameter between 2 and 4 μm. When mixed with human blood ex vivo, oxygen transfer from 70 volume % microparticles was complete within 4 s. When the microparticles were infused by intravenous injection into hypoxemic rabbits, arterial saturations increased within seconds to near-normal levels; this was followed by a decrease in oxygen tensions after stopping the infusions. The particles were also infused into rabbits undergoing 15 min of complete tracheal occlusion. Oxygen microparticles significantly decreased the degree of hypoxemia in these rabbits, and the incidence of cardiac arrest and organ injury was reduced compared to controls. The ability to administer oxygen and other gases directly to the bloodstream may represent a technique for short-term rescue of profoundly hypoxemic patients, to selectively augment oxygen delivery to at-risk organs, or for novel diagnostic techniques. Furthermore, the ability to titrate gas infusions rapidly may minimize oxygen-related toxicity.
Reference
Kheir JN, Scharp LA, Borden MA, Swanson EJ, Loxley A, Reese JH, Black KJ, Velazquez LA, Thomson LM, Walsh BK, Mullen KE, Graham DA, Lawlor MW, Brugnara C, Bell DC, McGowan FX Jr. Oxygen gas-filled microparticles provide intravenous oxygen delivery. Sci Transl Med. 2012 Jun 27;4(140):140ra88.
Chris is an Intensivist and ECMO specialist at The Alfred ICU, where he is Deputy Director (Education). He is a Clinical Adjunct Associate Professor at Monash University, the Lead for the Clinician Educator Incubator programme, and a CICM First Part Examiner.
He is an internationally recognised Clinician Educator with a passion for helping clinicians learn and for improving the clinical performance of individuals and collectives. He was one of the founders of the FOAM movement (Free Open-Access Medical education) has been recognised for his contributions to education with awards from ANZICS, ANZAHPE, and ACEM.
His one great achievement is being the father of three amazing children.
On Bluesky, he is @precordialthump.bsky.social and on the site that Elon has screwed up, he is @precordialthump.
| INTENSIVE | RAGE | Resuscitology | SMACC