The administration of hydrogen peroxide as the means of correcting tissue hypox-ia has been studied by many researchers since early 1920´s. The purpose of this study is to investigate the validity of clinical application of H202 enema for the treat-ment of carbon monoxide poisoning which, in Korea, is one of the most serious life threatening maladies.
Sixty rabbits were exposed to carbon monoxide (7,000 ppm) for fifty minutes and the arterial blood gas pictures before and after the exposure were observed. Im-mediately after the exposure, half of the animals were given with 10ml of 0.5% H202 solution per kg plus 1 ml of human whole blood by enema and the other half (control) simply with 10 ml of physiologic saline per kg by the same route. A series of blood sampling and gas analysis in every thirty minutes (up to 2 hours) following the enema were carried out and comparison was made between the two groups.
The conclusions were as follows:
1) The arterial blood gas picture after the exposure (poisoning) to carbon monoxide was suggestive of partially compensated metabolic acidosis which is interpreted as the result of lactic acid formation by anaerobic tissue metabolism.
2) Immediately after the exposure, extreme reduction of arterial PaCO2 was observ-ed. The reduced tissue metabolism through aerobic pathway and hyperventilation to overcome the hypoxic condition, both are considered to be the cause of this drop in arterial C02 tension.
3) Arterial Pa02 of the experimental group .at 30 minutes after the enema with 0.5% H202 solution was 19.5 mmHg higher than that of control group and this difference decreased gradually to 10.3 mmHg at 120 minutes.
Even though the result of tissue oxygenation by H202 enema is far less satisfactory than that of 100% oxygen inhalation, the application of this method may be con-sidered as a substitute of (or supplement to) oxygen treatment in some particular situations when oxygen equipment is not available or pulmonary function is significantly inhibited (e.g. burn to the respiratory tract, pneumonia etc).
|