Talk:Oxygen toxicity

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Date: 02:10, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
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Could any experts add some information about the mechanism of the intoxication? Or at least add something like "The mechanisms behind this is poorly understood"?--218.191.131.92 12:13, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

At normal pressure, breathing 100% Oxygen for more than an hour starts to cause chest pain and changes are seen in the Type 2 pneumocytes that line the alveoli. These are the cells that secrete surfactant and keep the alveoli open despite the tendency of Laplace’s law to close very small spaces. So the knock on effect is to get atelectasis,alveolar oedema and sometimes massive lung collapse. Over time the cells can accommodate their defences and if the need to breathe 100% is arrived at over a few days it is less toxic.

In ICU doctors like to get people down to 60% as soon as possible to avoid toxicity (having given 100% to preserve life) 100% can only be given via anaesthetic circuits not facemasks that entrain air. We frequently give 100% for tens of minutes at the start and finish of anaesthetics with no ill effect. All cells are subject to oxidative stress via oxygen radicals. Mechanisms such as Super oxide dismutase (SOD) and Glutathione mop up these radicals. High partial pressures drive the production of 02 radicals and toxicity results from this - cell membrane damage etc. The lungs are first in line to receive the damage Dissolved Nitrogen coming out of solution on decompression causes the 'bends'. Bubbles forming in the pulmonary circulation cause intractable coughing - 'the chokes' Oxygen in high concentration causes a number of different effects. At more than 2 bar the main problem is seizure activity. Hence the fact that you can't overcome the Bends by just breathing pure oxygen. The gas still needs to be diluted with something inert to avoid excess partial pressure -hence the use of Helium on deep dives that still need prolonged staged compression/decompression cycles.

Could anyone, even a non-expert, add to the "article" what Oxygen toxicity *is* ? The "article" says almost nothing about Oxygen toxicity beyond what is already conveyed by its title, but is especially notable for omitting a description of the symptoms. This makes the so-called article quite bizarre.71.224.204.167 03:33, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

It is quite important to note that the concept of oxygen toxicity in adult pulmonary and critical care medicine is a controversial one. In fact, there is significant debate as to whether or not patients with respiratory failrue breathing 100% oxygen at low altitudes (that is, breathing gas that is 100% oxygen at an altitude where the partial pressure of oxygen will be greater than 0.5 bar). In fact, oxygen toxicity has been called "the sasquatch of the adult ICU: often feared but never actually seen". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 140.142.205.49 (talk) 00:28, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Good Article?

This article has been rated as "Start-class" since October 2007. Since then much revision and adding of references has been done - many thanks again to Gene Hobbs for his tireless work in referencing.

What more ought to be done to raise this to GA status? --RexxS (talk) 19:46, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Ok - to answer my own question. I studied WP:GA? and considered the 6 criteria:

  • 1. I've been through the article trying to wiki-link first occurrence of what may be considered jargon; rationalise the headings; remove non-wiki use of bold; and added a word that I thought was missing. Anything else anyone can spot?
  • 2. Thanks to Gene, I believe it easily meets criteria for accuracy and verifiability.
  • 3. I hope it fits what is required in breadth of coverage. Anything missing?
  • 4. I'm pretty sure it is NPOV
  • 5. This page shows a history of steady improvement and no content dispute. As of this year, it's been stable with mainly improvements to references as edits.
  • 6. Here's the rub - no images! I'm not sure what images would be relevant to this topic and images are not required for GA, only preferable. Anybody have any ideas for images that would actually improve the content? --RexxS (talk) 21:42, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Quick suggestions

Nice work so far! A couple quick suggestions:

  • MoS recommends that headers not repeat the article title (so "Types", not "Types of oxygen toxicity".
  • Looks like it could use a bit of a copyedit, e.g. putting all the punctuation before ref tags. Also, all jargon should be explained and the simplest possible terms should be used (it might be a little hard for a layperson to read). delldot talk 09:08, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the quick response - I wonder if you could give me some more advice on what I can forsee as the problems:
  • The page has 163 links - do you know of any way of automating the checking process to make sure I don't break links by renaming a section (in case the section is linked to, I mean)?
  • You mean other articles that may be linking to a section in this page? My instinct would be not to worry about it. If it breaks it'll just redirect to the article in general, and if anyone's paying attention to those pages they'll take care of it. delldot talk 18:40, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
  • I like the idea of some images of chemical structures, although the fatty acid article already has several and the superoxide has one. Gene has told me he is likely to have some images of lungs damaged by chronic O2 toxicity which I think will go even better with this article. Is there such a thing as "too few" or "too many" images?
  • Well you don't want to overwhelm the article with images, but I'd say one per section wouldn't be too much as long as they're good-sized sections. Gene's idea sounds fantastic, if s/he can provide a nice one it would make a great upper right image and improve the article a lot. I think if you end up needing to remove some you can safely do away with the chemical structures ones but you're not near to being in danger of that problem yet. delldot talk 18:40, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
  • I'm happy to do some copyedits per MOS, but my problem is exemplified by the first sentence: There are 6 references which relate to that sentence - 2 of those are particular cites for "Paul Bert effect", 1 just for "Lorrain Smith effect" and 2 others illustrating the general point of high partial pressures. In other words, when a sentence contains 3 distinct points that are sourced, must I put all the sources at the end of the sentence? It seems (to me) more sensible in those cases to associate the relevant sources with the point that they verify, even though the punctuation they follow is not a period. Is there any way around this?
  • Yeah, the problem with mid-sentence refs is annoying because they're ugly and kind of disruptive to the reading, but I'm definitely with you on that: the ref should come after the fact they're backing up. Otherwise it looks like they're endorsing something they never said, which I would say is a Very Bad Thing. So I'd have a preference for ugly mid-sentence refs over refs at the end (also I've been told in a peer review that you don't need a bunch of refs at the end of a sentence, you can just choose one or two of the best sources, e.g. a review paper from a respected journal). delldot talk 18:40, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
  • I've been reading WP:PR and noticed that someone suggested it was acceptable to have the LEAD uncited as long as the points were cited in the main text. Perhaps that would be a sensible option here as the worst of the mid-sentence-refs occur in the lead (because of the very nature of summary, I guess)? --RexxS (talk) 02:09, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Would it be acceptable to everyone if we just moved the "also known as" portions of that sentence to the appropriate area in the article? If there are no complaints, I can do that anytime. Also, still no word from the Navy pathologist (he is moving) but I'll get the histology pictures up as soon as I have them. Thanks for all the hard work everyone, I am almost happy with this! --Gene Hobbs (talk) 02:51, 14 June 2008 (UTC)


I'll have a try at simplifying the jargon - I'm a diver, not a medic, so I will probably need to seek "medical advice" for that! Thanks in advance for anything you can shed some light on here --RexxS (talk) 18:05, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
I'm a layperson too, but with an interest in medicine, so I may be able to help out some. Let me know if you have any specific questions. Thanks for all your dilligent work! delldot talk 18:40, 12 June 2008 (UTC)