Patients With New Coronary Pneumonia Will Bid Farewell To Happy Hypoxia

Patients with new coronary pneumonia will bid farewell to "happy hypoxia"

Scientists have discovered a new condition in which some COVID-19 patients have extremely low oxygen levels, even life-threatening, but no signs of breathing difficulties, and call this condition "happy hypoxia".

New understanding of this condition, asymptomatic hypoxemia, could prevent patients from undergoing unnecessary intubations and ventilation.

Intubation is the process of inserting a tube, the endotracheal tube (ET), through the mouth into the airway. In this way, the patient can wear a breathing mask to assist breathing through a ventilator.

"Happy hypoxia" confuses doctors because it goes against basic biology, says Martin Tobin, a professor at Loyola University Chicago's Stritch School of Medicine. "

"In some cases, the patient feels comfortable when the doctor inserts the cannula and connects the cannula to the ventilator," Tobin said. "While this has the potential to save the patient's life, there are certain risks. .”

The study included 16 COVID-19 patients without shortness of breath or difficulty breathing who had very low oxygen levels -- as low as 50 percent, below normal blood oxygen saturation (95 percent to 100 percent).

The researchers found that "several pathophysiological mechanisms could account for the majority of cases of asymptomatic hypoxemia," which included initial assessment of the patient's oxygen levels using a pulse oximeter. Pulse oximeters work by emitting two types of red light from your finger, which is picked up by a blood oxygen sensor on the other side of the device and detects the color of your blood.

"While the pulse oximeter is very accurate when the oxygen readings are high, when the oxygen readings are low, it can significantly increase the oxygen levels," Tobin said.

Another factor, he noted, is how the brain responds to low oxygen levels. "As oxygen levels drop in COVID-19 patients, the brain only responds when the oxygen levels get very low -- and that's when patients typically experience symptoms of shortness of breath."

In addition, more than half of the patients had low levels of carbon dioxide, which may lessen the effects of low oxygen levels, the researchers said.

"Coronaviruses may also have a specific effect on hypoxia in humans," Tobin said, a phenomenon experienced in two-thirds of COVID-19 patients, which may have something to do with the lack of smell.

Along with further research, the study found that "the features of COVID-19 that doctors find puzzling become less strange when viewed in light of long-standing principles of respiratory physiology.

Tobin said: "This new discovery can avoid unnecessary intubation and ventilation, and for COVID-19 patients, it can reduce the risk of the second wave of the epidemic."