Beyond butt breathing: A breath of fresh air

Several years ago, Takanori Takebe’s father caught pneumonia and had to be put on a ventilator. A medical doctor and stem cell biologist at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center in Ohio and the University of Osaka in Japan, Takebe was shocked by how invasive ventilators are, and began to wonder if there were other ways to help oxygenate patients. Now, he and his colleagues are testing an experimental enemalike treatment that delivers an oxygen-rich liquid through the rectum into the bloodstream, Maria Temming reports for SN.

🩸 A new way to breathe

Takebe drew inspiration from nature as well as his background in gastroenterology. Various animals get their oxygen through their skin, genitals or guts. For example, freshwater fish called loaches swallow air to consume supplementary oxygen in addition to what their gills take in. The human intestinal tract, he knew, is replete with blood vessels, so perhaps the intestines could be a good candidate for blood oxygenation.

Enemas already deliver medicine into the bloodstream this way. The treatment Takebe and his team developed sends into the rectum a liquid called perfluorodecalin, which is already incorporated in some medical procedures and can be loaded with oxygen.