Hadanny A, Zilberman-Itskovich S, Catalogna M, Elman-Shina K, Lang E, Finci S, Polak N, Shorer R, Parag Y, Efrati S, et al.
Scientific reports. Date of publication 2024 Feb 15;volume 14(1):3604.
1. Sci Rep. 2024 Feb 15;14(1):3604. doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-53091-3.
Long term outcomes of hyperbaric oxygen therapy in post covid condition:
longitudinal follow-up of a randomized controlled trial.
Hadanny A(1)(2), Zilberman-Itskovich S(3)(4), Catalogna M(3), Elman-Shina
K(3)(4), Lang E(3)(4), Finci S(3)(4), Polak N(3)(4), Shorer R(3), Parag Y(3),
Efrati S(3)(4)(5).
Author information:
(1)Sagol Center for Hyperbaric Medicine and Research, Shamir (Assaf Harofeh)
Medical Center, Zerifin, Israel. amir.had@gmail.com.
(2)School of Medicine, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel.
amir.had@gmail.com.
(3)Sagol Center for Hyperbaric Medicine and Research, Shamir (Assaf Harofeh)
Medical Center, Zerifin, Israel.
(4)School of Medicine, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel.
(5)Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel.
In our previous randomized controlled trial, we documented significant
improvements in cognitive, psychiatric, fatigue, sleep, and pain symptoms among
long Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID) patients who underwent hyperbaric oxygen
therapy (HBOT). The primary objective of the present study was to evaluate the
enduring 1 year long term effects of HBOT on long COVID syndrome. This
longitudinal long-term follow-up included 31 patients with reported post
COVID-19 cognitive symptoms, who underwent 40 daily sessions of HBOT.
Participants were recruited more than one year (486 ± 73) after completion of
the last HBOT session. Quality of life, assessed using the short form-36 (SF-36)
questionnaire revealed, that the long-term results exhibited a similar magnitude
of improvement as the short-term outcomes following HBOT across most domains.
Regarding sleep quality, improvements were observed in global score and across
five sleep domains with effect sizes of moderate magnitude during the short-term
evaluation, and these improvements persisted in the long-term assessment (effect
size (ES1) = 0.47-0.79). In the realm of neuropsychiatric symptoms, as evaluated
by the brief symptom inventory-18 (BSI-18), the short-term assessment following
HBOT demonstrated a large effect size, and this effect persisted at the
long-term evaluation. Both pain severity (ES1 = 0.69) and pain interference
(ES1 = 0.83), had significant improvements during the short-term assessment post
HBOT, which persisted at long term. The results indicate HBOT can improve the
quality of life, quality of sleep, psychiatric and pain symptoms of patients
suffering from long COVID. The clinical improvements gained by HBOT are
persistent even 1 year after the last HBOT session.
© 2024. The Author(s).
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-53091-3
PMCID: PMC10869702
PMID: 38360929 [Indexed for MEDLINE]
Conflict of interest statement: Amir Hadanny works for AVIV Scientific LTD. Shai
Efrati is a shareholder at AVIV Scientific LTD. LTD. SZI, MC, KES, EL, SF, NP,
RS, RS and YP have no competing interests.
