BACKGROUND Acute mountain sickness occurs in some unacclimatized persons who travel to terrestrial altitudes at which barometric pressures are the same as those in commercial aircraft during flight. Whether the effects are similar in air travelers is unknown. METHODS We conducted a prospective, single-blind, controlled hypobaric-chamber study of adult volunteers to determine the effect of bar...

OBJECTIVE To quantify efficacy and harm of pharmacological prevention of acute mountain sickness. DATA SOURCES Systematic search (Medline, Embase, Cochrane Library, internet, bibliographies, authors) in any language, up to October 1999. STUDY SELECTION Randomised placebo controlled trials. DATA EXTRACTION Dichotomous data on efficacy and harm from 33 trials (523 subjects received 13 diffe...

In the present issue of the European Respiratory Journal, BERGER et al. [1] report the lack of efficacy of inhaled budesonide for the prevention of acute mountain sickness (AMS). This small well-designed study was undertaken to verify or refute the provocative finding of robust protection with budesonide against AMS reported by Chinese colleagues in 2014 [2] and 2015 [3]. In the presently repor...

We investigated the incidence of AMS amongst a general population of trekkers on Mount Kilimanjaro, using the Lake Louise consensus scoring system (LLS). Additionally we examined the effect of prophylactic acetazolamide and different ascent profiles. Climbers on 3 different ascent itineraries were recruited. At 2743 m we recruited 177 participants (mean age 31, range [18-71]) who completed LLS ...

The Chinese AMS score (CAS) is used in clinical medicine and research to diagnosis acute mountain sickness (AMS). However, the Lake Louise Score (LLS) is the well-accepted standard for diagnosing AMS. The difference between the CAS and LLS questionnaires is that the CAS considers more nonspecific symptoms. The aim of the present study was to evaluate differences in AMS prevalence according to t...

For many low-altitude (<1500 m) residents, their travel itineraries may cause them to ascend rapidly to high (>2400 m) altitudes without having the time to develop an adequate degree of altitude acclimatization. Prior to departing on these trips, low-altitude residents can induce some degree of altitude acclimatization by ascending to moderate (>1500 m) or high altitudes during either continuou...