How Can You Breathe If Your Lungs Fail? Scientists Are Testing an Innovative Method

Takanori Takebe serves as Director of Commercial Innovation at the Center for Stem Cell and Organoid Medicine (CuSTOM) at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital.

As a physician and stem-cell biologist, he spends most of his time developing lab-grown livers to treat organ failure, Euronews reports.

Several years ago, his attention was drawn to fish from the Umbra family. When they end up in waters low in oxygen, they supplement their gill breathing by gulping air from the surface and sending it directly into their intestines.

“There are many diseases that can become life-threatening because they impair the lungs’ ability to transfer oxygen into the blood,” Takebe explains in the Cincinnati Children’s online magazine.

These include airway injuries or inflammation, pneumonia that fills the lungs with fluid, and more. During the COVID-19 pandemic, many patients died due to a shortage of ventilators.

According to Takebe, enteral breathing could represent an important alternative pathway for oxygen delivery.

“Further confirmation is needed, but our early studies show that our ventilation system can support patients with severe respiratory failure,” he notes.

The concept of “breathing through the rectum” involves introducing a liquid known as a perfluorocarbon, which contains far more oxygen than water normally carries. When administered through a rectal tube, the lower part of the intestine absorbs oxygen from the liquid and transfers it directly into the bloodstream.

In experiments with mice and pigs, enemas with highly oxygenated liquid allowed the animals to survive periods of severely reduced oxygen levels. In pigs, a 400-milliliter dose increased blood oxygen levels for about 19 minutes.

Further pig experiments published in 2023 showed that this method could raise blood oxygen saturation for up to half an hour.

Researchers are now studying the safety of “rectal breathing” in humans.

In Japan, 27 healthy male volunteers received doses of perfluorodecalin (not oxygen-enriched) via the rectum and retained the liquid for one hour. One group received 25 milliliters; the largest dose was 1.5 liters — the maximum allowable amount for contrast agents used in gastrointestinal X-ray imaging.

Four of the six men in the “1.5-liter group” had to stop the procedure early due to abdominal pain. However, most participants who received up to one liter tolerated the liquid fairly well, aside from bloating and mild discomfort, Takebe’s team reports.

Further research is needed to refine the “delivery system,” the scientists say. The goal is to determine how much oxygen can be delivered to the human body, for how long, and whether the method poses any unexpected risks.

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