The knowledge and opinions of urology doctors in turkey of hyperbaric oxygen therapy in radiation-induced hemorrhagic cystitis: a survey study

Objective: Radiation-induced hemorrhagic cystitis (RHC) is an accepted hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) indication. We aimed to analyze the knowledge and the opinions of urology physicians on HBOT in RHS patients with a survey.Materials and Methods: The questionnaires were conducted face to face or online on urology physicians.Results: Seventy-seven urology physicians participated in our study. Physicians have been working for 11 ± 10.5 years in the field of Urology. The 84.4% of our physicians had an average of 0-10 RHC patient administration in a year. However, the majority of the participants stated that they have never referred RHC patients to HBOT. Similarly, 48.1% of the physicians stated that they have insufficient knowledge of HBOT for their specialty. On the other hand, the majority were not sure about the HBOT as an effective treatment option in RHC patients (54.5%), about the cost-effectiveness of HBOT for RHC (66.2%), and the ability of HBOT on shortening the recovery period of RHC patients (49.9%). We observed that physicians who did not have any knowledge on HBOT had statistically significantly lower RHC patient referral rates to HBOT and had more negative opinions on the effectiveness of HBOT in RHC patients (respectively p<0.001, p=0.002). Likewise, physicians who had RHC patient admissions had statistically significantly more positive opinions about HBOT in terms of treatment efficiency, shortening the recovery period, and being a safe treatment option in RHC patients compared to the physicians who did not have any RHC patient admissions (respectively p<0.001, p<0,001, p<0.001).Conclusion: We found that the urology physicians’ knowledge of HBOT application in RHC patients was insufficient. Thus, we realized that they were doubtful about HBOT as an effective RHC treatment option. Likewise, we found out that most of the urology physicians do not refer RHC patients for HBOT.Keywords: hyperbaric oxygen therapy, cystitis, radiation injuries, bladder, urologists