Developing biocompatible, synthetic oxygen carriers is a consistently challenging task that researchers have been pursuing for decades. Perfluorocarbons (PFC) are fascinating compounds with a huge capacity to dissolve gases, where the respiratory gases are of special interest for current investigations. Although largely chemically and biologically inert, pure PFCs are not suitable for injection into the vascular system. Extensive research created stable PFC nano-emulsions that avoid (i) fast clearance from the blood and (ii) long organ retention time, which leads to undesired transient side effects. PFC-based oxygen carriers (PFOCs) show a variety of application fields, which are worthwhile to investigate. To understand the difficulties that challenge researchers in creating formulations for clinical applications, this review provides the physical background of PFCs’ properties and then illuminates the reasons for instabilities of PFC emulsions. By linking the unique properties of PFCs and PFOCs to physiology, it elaborates on the response, processing and dysregulation, which the body experiences through intravascular PFOCs. Thereby the reader will receive a scientific and easily comprehensible overview why PFOCs are precious tools for so many diverse application areas from cancer therapeutics to blood substitutes up to organ preservation and diving disease.

开发具有生物相容性的合成氧载体是研究人员几十年来一直追求的一项始终具有挑战性的任务。全氟化碳 (PFC) 是一种迷人的化合物，具有巨大的溶解气体能力，目前的研究对呼吸气体特别感兴趣。尽管在很大程度上具有化学和生物惰性，但纯 PFC 不适合注射到血管系统中。广泛的研究创造了稳定的 PFC 纳米乳液，可避免 (i) 从血液中快速清除和 (ii) 较长的器官保留时间，这会导致不希望的短暂副作用。基于 PFC 的氧载体 (PFOC) 显示出多种应用领域，值得研究。为了了解研究人员在创建临床应用配方方面面临的困难，这篇综述提供了 PFC 特性的物理背景，然后阐明了 PFC 乳液不稳定的原因。通过将 PFCs 和 PFOCs 的独特特性与生理学联系起来，它详细阐述了身体通过血管内 PFOCs 所经历的反应、处理和失调。因此，读者将获得科学且易于理解的概述，为什么 PFOC 是如此众多不同应用领域的宝贵工具，从癌症治疗到血液替代品，再到器官保存和潜水疾病。