Acute respiratory failure can cause profound hypoxaemia that leads to organ injury or death within minutes. When conventional interventions are ineffective, the intravenous administration of oxygen can rescue patients from severe hypoxaemia, but at the risk of microvascular obstruction and of toxicity of the carrier material. Here we describe polymeric microbubbles as carriers of high volumes of oxygen (350–500 ml of oxygen per litre of foam) that are stable in storage yet quickly dissolve following intravenous injection, reverting to their soluble and excretable molecular constituents. In swine with profound hypoxaemia owing to acute and temporary (12 min) upper-airway obstruction, the microbubble-mediated delivery of oxygen led to: the maintenance of critical oxygenation, lowered burdens of cardiac arrest, improved survival, and substantially improved neurologic and kidney function in surviving animals. Our findings underscore the importance of maintaining a critical threshold of oxygenation and the promise of injectable oxygen as a viable therapy in acute and temporary hypoxaemic crises.

急性呼吸衰竭可导致严重低氧血症，在几分钟内导致器官损伤或死亡。当常规干预无效时，静脉输氧可以挽救患者免受严重低氧血症的影响，但存在微血管阻塞和载体材料毒性的风险。在这里，我们将聚合物微气泡描述为大量氧气（每升泡沫 350-500 毫升氧气）的载体，这些氧气在储存中稳定，但在静脉注射后迅速溶解，恢复为可溶性和可排泄的分子成分。在因急性和暂时性（12 分钟）上气道阻塞而导致严重低氧血症的猪中，微气泡介导的氧气输送导致：维持关键的氧合，降低心脏骤停的负担，提高生存率，并显著改善存活动物的神经和肾功能。我们的研究结果强调了维持氧合临界阈值的重要性，以及注射氧气作为急性和暂时性低氧血症危象的可行疗法的前景。