This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Related articles  • Similar articles in JAMA  Topic Collections  • Surgical Physiology  • Surgical Infections  • Alert me on articles by topic

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

In Reply: The intubated patients in our study were randomly assigned to receive either 30% or 80% oxygen. These concentrations were accurately provided intraoperatively by the anesthesia machine. Dr Agarwal is concerned that our patients may not have received the designated concentration postoperatively. We ensured proper delivery by using adult Intersurgical High Concentration Oxygen Masks with a 1-L fresh gas reservoir, with the assigned oxygen concentration provided at 16 L /min. Even at a respiratory rate of 20/min and minute ventilation of 10 L /min, patients take 500 mL during inspiration from the reservoir, which must be refilled during expiration. A constant flow of 16 L /min provides 520 mL to the reservoir during 2 seconds of expiration, which is more than needed to refill the reservoir, thus assuring delivery of the assigned concentration. During the initial phase of the study, we measured oxygen concentration inside the masks and found the designated oxygen . . . [Full Text of this Article]

F. Javier Belda, MD
fco.javier.belda@uv.es
Department of Anaesthesiology
Hospital Clínico Universitario de Valencia
Valencia, Spain

Daniel I. Sessler, MD
Department of Outcomes Research
Cleveland Clinic
Cleveland, Ohio

RELATED ARTICLES

Supplemental Oxygen and Risk of Surgical Wound Infection
Ritesh Agarwal
JAMA. 2006;295(14):1641.
EXTRACT | FULL TEXT  

Supplemental Oxygen and Risk of Surgical Wound Infection
Stefan Suttner, Joachim Boldt, and Swen Piper
JAMA. 2006;295(14):1641-1642.
EXTRACT | FULL TEXT  

Supplemental Oxygen and Risk of Surgical Wound Infection
Kane O. Pryor, Cynthia A. Lien, Thomas J. Fahey, III, and Peter A. Goldstein
JAMA. 2006;295(14):1642.
EXTRACT | FULL TEXT  

Supplemental Perioperative Oxygen and the Risk of Surgical Wound Infection: A Randomized Controlled Trial
F. Javier Belda, Luciano Aguilera, José García de la Asunción, Javier Alberti, Rosario Vicente, Lucía Ferrándiz, Rafael Rodríguez, Roque Company, Daniel I. Sessler, Gerardo Aguilar, Stephanie García Botello, Rafael Ortí, and for the Spanish Reduccion de la Tasa de Infeccion Quirurgica Group
JAMA. 2005;294(16):2035-2042.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT