Patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome, a life-threatening lung condition, are usually fitted with a face mask to help them breath, although this method is relatively ineffective and results in endotracheal intubation to open a pathway for breathing. New research from the University of Chicago compared the use of an oxygen helmet that fits over a patient's entire head to the traditional face mask method and found it to be significantly superior.
The helmet was so effective that the researchers actually stopped the trial before its completion to transfer patient participants in the face mask group over to the helmet group. The results, published in JAMA, found that after 90 days, 15 patients in the helmet group died from ARDS, compared to 22 patients in the face mask group. There was also a significant reduction in 90-day mortality for patients using the helmet noninvasive ventilation strategy, the authors wrote.