Radiation Tissue Injury Study
The Foundation's first area of clinical focus is the problem of late radiation tissue injury. This consequence of therapeutic radiation for the control of malignant disease can be injurious and complex, and exceedingly difficult to manage. It involves some mortality, frequently represents a huge financial burden, and has been considered by some patients to be more devastating than the cancer itself.
A great deal of hyperbaric data has addressed the problem of mandibular radiation tissue. Its present level of supportive evidence is certainly encouraging, and highly suggestive of hyperbaric oxygen therapy being both clinically efficacious and cost effective. As the same damaging effects of radiotherapy have been observed at other anatomic sites, hyperbaric oxygen therapy has likewise been incorporated into its medical and surgical management. This latter level of clinical evidence, however, is less impressive, although wide-ranging unsystematic case experience is reported as positive.
In order to address this level of evidence shortcoming, and better determine the effectiveness of hyperbaric oxygen therapy, project HORTIS has been conceived. HORTIS (Hyperbaric Oxygen Radiation Tissue Injury Study) actually involves eight different trials. Seven are separate anatomic sites, and there is one prophylactic "arm". Sites in question are the mandible, larynx, skin, bladder, rectum, colon, and cervix. The HORTIS design is one of a multi-center, randomized and double-blinded controlled clinical trial, with a patient cross-over option.
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Project HORTIS Overview (pdf, 800KB) 
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