Home oxygen therapy and cigarette smoking: a dangerous practice.

Oxygen as a therapeutic agent is an important form of home therapy for hypoxic chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and improved survival has been demonstrated in hypoxic COPD patients receiving continuous oxygen. However, some patients, despite dissuasion, continue to smoke and we describe the case of a patient on home oxygen who sustained a partial-thickness facial flash burn whilst engaged in this habit. A review is made of the literature, as also a comparison of all discovered cases of burns in home oxygen users, followed by a discussion of the implications of this potentially hazardous form of therapy.