100% oxygen via nasal cannula, even at a barely tolerable 6L/minute. Still only results of an intake O2 concentration of <50% [0]. You can with heated humidified systems achieving rates approaching the 100% used here.
But they are still at atmospheric pressures, this research is on a combination of high oxygen (hyperoxia) and high pressures (hyperbaric), which leads to much higher partial pressures of oxygen within the body according to Dalton's equations[1].
Oxygen in excess is toxic. The implications of this science-fact has been mostly forgotten by Medicine, but is commonly known by SCUBA divers (whose enemy is Nitrogen).
Just watched my mom's 98 year old friend get finished off with nasal oxygen (~week ago). Once she'd been on it for a day couldn't go without it. If the goal was to extend her life, they would have incorporated the antidote to oxygen toxicity.
I call it #MedicalHyperventilation [0], but afaik my term hasn't taken off.
Confession: I have yet to read the piece; just responding to @wrycoder's question. A colleague of mine worked in hyperbaric immunology to discover protocols for anaerobic wound healing. The only protocol available then were from the Navy and it's "diving chambers" for dealing with "bends".
The game was to take patient something like 300' below sea level (hyperbaric) and then a) start the antibiotics and b) turn on the oxygen flow. The high pressure drives oxygen deep into the tissues, where it would otherwise not penetrate at sea level pressures.
He was working with a 14-gurney chamber at an Air Force base, using an experimental discovery system we were co-developing at the time.
