Description

This book is written primarily for diving and
hyperbaric physicians in the hope of improving
access to the best clinical evidence in our field.
HBOT is a poorly understood therapeutic modality and
remains on the fringe of accepted medical practice
despite 50 years of clinical experience. One
criticism made of this field is that treatment is
based on little or no good clinical evidence. The
aims of this book are to collate all the available
randomised evidence, with a standard critical
appraisal of each individual paper using accepted
evidence-based principles, and to synthesise that
evidence in a series of systematic reviews with cost-
effectiveness analyses. The reviews suggest that
HBOT is justified as a routine therapy in a number
of indications, clearly unhelpful in others and is
of unclear benefit in yet others. Recommendations
for therapy and future research directions can be
made on the basis of these analyses.
For non-medical readers, the inclusion of 'Plain
English' summaries for each of the meta-analyses
should improve the appreciation of the arguments for
and against HBOT for the majority of indications.