Conner Moslander is a Resident in the Department of Internal Medicine; Tasnim Lat is Faculty and Rachael Pattison is a Fellow, both in the Division of Pulmonary/Critical Care Medicine; all at Baylor Scott & White in Temple, Texas. Badri Giri is an Assistant Professor at Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine in the Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine Carilion Clinic in Roanoke, Virginia. John Coppin is a Statistician in the Department of Research, and Udaya Bhat is Associate Program Director for the Pulmonary and Critical Care Fellowship Program, both at Central Texas Veterans Health Care System. Udaya Bhat is Chief, Pulmonary/Critical Care Section and Assistant Professor of Medicine at Texas A&M University in College Station. Correspondence: Udaya Bhat (udaya.bhat@va.gov)
Author disclosures The authors report no actual or potential conflicts of interest with regard to this article.
Disclaimer The opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of Federal Practitioner, Frontline Medical Communications Inc., the US Government, or any of its agencies.
The findings from our study concur with those previously published regarding the risk of home oxygen fire and concomitant smoking, supporting the idea for more regulated and concrete guidelines for prescribing LTOT to those requiring it. 8
Limitations
The major limitation was the small sample size of our study. Another limitation was that our study population is predominantly male as is common in veteran cohorts. In fiscal year 2016, the veteran population of Texas was 1,434,361 males and 168,967 females. 16 According to Franklin and colleagues, HCPs noticed an increase use of long-term oxygen among women compared with that of men. 17
Conclusions
Our study showed an increased odds of firerelated incidents of patients while on LTOT, strengthening the argument that even with extensive education, those who smoke and are on LTOT continue to put themselves at risk of a fire-related incident. This finding stresses the importance of continuing patient education on the importance of smoking cessation prior to administration of LTOT or avoiding fire hazards while on LTOT. Further research into LTOT and fire hazards could help in implementing a more structured approval process for patients who want to obtain LTOT. We propose further studies evaluating risk factors for the incidence of fire events among patients prescribed LTOT. A growing and aging population with a need for LTOT necessitates examination of oxygen safe prescribing.
