Lack of Effectiveness of Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy for the Treatment of Diabetic Foot Ulcer and the Prevention of Amputation: A cohort study

OBJECTIVE: Hyperbaric oxygen (HBO) is a device that is used to treat foot ulcers. The study goal was to compare the effectiveness of HBO with other conventional therapies administered in a wound care network for the treatment of a diabetic foot ulcer and prevention of lower-extremity amputation. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: This was a longitudinal observational cohort study. To address treatment selection bias, we used propensity scores to determine the “propensity” that an individual was selected to receive HBO. RESULTS: We studied 6,259 individuals with diabetes, adequate lower limb arterial perfusion, and foot ulcer extending through the dermis, representing 767,060 person-days of wound care. In the propensity score–adjusted models, individuals receiving HBO were less likely to have healing of their foot ulcer (hazard ratio 0.68 [95% CI 0.63–0.73]) and more likely to have an amputation (2.37 [1.84–3.04]). Additional analyses, including the use of an instrumental variable, were conducted to assess the robustness of our results to unmeasured confounding. HBO was not found to improve the likelihood that a wound might heal or to decrease the likelihood of amputation in any of these analyses. CONCLUSIONS: Use of HBO neither improved the likelihood that a wound would heal nor prevented amputation in a cohort of patients defined by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services eligibility criteria. The usefulness of HBO in the treatment of diabetic foot ulcers needs to be reevaluated.