EDITORIAL

Long-term oxygen therapy: aligning the clinician and patient perspective to maximize patient benefit Long-term oxygen therapy (LTOT), the provision of oxygen for continuous use at home for patients with chronic hypoxemia, is regarded by clinicians as an essential component of the management of severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).1–3 It is the only treatment, other than stopping smok-ing4 that has been clearly proven to alter outcome in COPD.1–3 The evidence that LTOT improves sur-vival comes from two landmark clinical trials in patients with severe COPD and chronic hypoxemia (PaO2 at or below 7.3 kPa [55 mmHg]) published nearly 30 years ago. The UKMedical Research Council (MRC) trial