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St. John's Pleasant Valley Hospital in Camarillo has the only hyperbaric medicine unit in West Ventura County, and has treated more than 300 cases. The two-chamber unit and the staff of hyperbaric-trained physicians, registered nurses, and technicians are on call 24 hours a day to provide emergency treatments. The department treats between 20 and 30 decompression illness victims a year, which makes them one of the busiest diving medicine departments in the country.

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Hyperbaric oxygen therapy, also called HBO, is a medical treatment that uses increased atmospheric pressures to deliver high dose oxygen to patients suffering from a wide range of clinical conditions. The most frequent uses of hyperbaric oxygen are soft tissue wound healing and limb salvage. In a pressurized chamber, which is how HBO is administered, 10 to 20 times the normal amount of oxygen reaches the body tissues. The combination of increased oxygen and pressure allows the blood to carry greater amounts of oxygen to the area of the body that needs healing. This extra oxygen is very beneficial in treating a number of conditions, including chronic, infected or irradiated wounds, carbon monoxide poisoning, and decompression sickness.

The hyperbaric chambers are capable of delivering up to three atmospheres of 100 percent oxygen. Wound care is individually prescribed using state of the art diagnostic techniques and treatment.

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Oxygen levels in the body can drop severely as a result of injury, infection or disease causing tissue damage. During HBO, a patient sits or reclines in a pressurized chamber as high doses of oxygen are delivered throughout the blood, allowing rapid healing of affected tissue. The extra oxygen is beneficial in treating a number of conditions, including chronic wounds, carbon monoxide poisoning, thermal burns and decompression sickness. Diabetes related wounds and necrotizing fasciitis, known as flesh-eating disease, which is caused when a certain strain of bacteria attacks the tissue surrounding muscle, are among the conditions most commonly treated at St. John's. After treatment, most patients find relief from serious wounds, pain, and disfiguration.

In addition to HBO Therapy, patients with severe lesions may require additional wound treatment, which can include implanting bioengineered tissue substitutes into the prepared wound. St. John's is one of the only wound treatment departments in California to use Dermagraft® and Apligraf®, new tissue substitutes used to treat diabetic foot ulcers. St. John's was also selected as a Dermagraft® teaching site for other wound care nurses and doctors.

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Wounds treated include:

• Diabetic foot and leg wounds
• Venous leg ulcers
• Ischemic (arterial) wounds
• Problem decubitus wounds
• Radiation-induced wounds
• Vasculitic wounds
• Chronic osteomyelitis
• Unusual wounds such as pyoderma gangrenosum and calciphylaxis

The department also cares for acute life- and limb-threatening conditions such as:

• Necrotizing fasciitis (the so-called "flesh-eating bacteria")
• Carbon Monoxide Poisoning
• Rattlesnake bites
• Brown recluse spider bites
• Decompression illness (the "bends" and air embolisms)

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For more information on St. John's Hyperbaric Medicine and Wound Care Unit, call (805) 389-5944.

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