Oxygen Therapy-Reply

In Reply.—  Our article, of course, was intended to review only our experience in COPD, as the title indicated. We attempted to present a state-ofthe-art review in the light of our own experience, which admittedly is at an altitude different from that of the large population centers of the United States (but at the same altitude that exists throughout the Rocky Mountain region, including other large cities such as Albuquerque, NM, and Salt Lake City).We have no hard data on which to base recommendations for therapy in states other than advanced COPD with demonstrable hypoxemia, but of course we have had broad clinical experience with the clinical states cited by Drs Chusid and Bickerman and we agree that some but not all patients have improved from a clinical standpoint.We completely agree that the individual tolerance to given levels of hypoxemia varies tremendously. Many times I challenge new fellows,