Oxygen therapy in palliative care

Breathlessness in advanced disease is a common problem, with the majority of people experiencing breathlessness in the weeks before death. The thrust of the new British Thoracic Society guidelines for home oxygen in adults is that oxygen therapy for home use is most useful in chronic hypoxaemia. However, clinicians make individual clinical decisions, cognisant of the guidelines but ultimately determined by what relieves the symptoms of the individual most effectively.