Doctors try pressurized oxygen chambers in COVID fight

As a New York University medical researcher who works once a week in an emergency room, Dr. David Lee had the luxury of time to think like a scientist while also treating coronavirus patients whose lungs kept giving out. In every case, he saw the same thing: Their blood was starved of oxygen.

One day an idea hit him: Could hyperbaric oxygen therapy, best known for treating divers with the bends, help stave off the need for ventilators and perhaps reduce deaths?

Physiologically it made sense to him, but he soon learned it was also complicated. The therapy, which involves delivering 100% oxygen straight to patients inside a pressurized chamber, is often met with skepticism by the wider medical community because fringe supporters have long touted it as a virtual cure-all without scientific evidence.

So much so that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration wrote a consumer update a few years ago, explaining that the therapy is only approved for 13 types of treatment, ranging from burns to deep wounds and carbon monoxide poisoning. The agency warned patients not to be misled by claims on the Internet that it works for conditions such as cancer or autism.

Still, with medical teams worldwide having little success at saving lives despite throwing everything they had at COVID patients — testing old drugs, trying new ones — Lee believed doctors should be more open to exploring different types of treatments. He brought his theory to Dr. Scott Gorenstein, a colleague at NYU Winthrop Hospital on Long Island with a decade of experience in the field.

Though the treatment is non-invasive, with a long history of safety, both men knew they faced major obstacles. Chief among them: finding funding, and overcoming skepticism about the treatment fueled by hyperbaric spas as well as videos of celebrities like Justin Bieber and LeBron...