title: Decompression illness: clinical aspects of 5278 consecutive cases treated in a single hyperbaric unit.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Decompression illness (DCI) is a major concern in pressure-related activities. Due to its specific prerequisite conditions, DCI is rare in comparison with other illnesses and most physicians are inexperienced in treatment. In a fishery area in northern China, during the past decade, tens of thousands of divers engaged in seafood harvesting and thousands suffered from DCI. We established a hyperbaric facility there and treated the majority of the cases.
  
  
  RESULTS
  A total of 5,278 DCI cases were admitted in our facility from February 2000 through December 2010 and treated using our recompression schedules. Cutaneous abnormalities, joint and muscular pain and neurological manifestations were three most common symptoms. The initial symptom occurred within 6 h after surfacing in 98.9% of cases, with an overall median latency of 62 min. The shorter the latent time, the more serious the symptoms would be (P<0.0001). Nine cases died before recompression and 5,269 were treated using four recompression schedules, with an overall effectiveness rate of 99.3%. The full recovery rate decreased with the increase of the delay from the onset of symptoms to the treatment (P<0.0001).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  DCI presents specific occurrence rules. Recompression should be administered as soon as possible and should never be abandoned irrespective of the delay. The recompression schedules used were effective and flexible for variety conditions of DCI.
authors.affiliation: Department of Diving Medicine, Faculty of Naval Medicine, the Second Military Medical University, Shanghai, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Wenbing
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: Wenwu
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Guoyang
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.forename: Zijiao
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Zou
authors.forename: Zhiyu
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Cai
authors.forename: Weigang
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Xu
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D003665:Decompression Sickness / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000209:etiology / Q000401:mortality / Q000628:therapy*; D004242:Diving / Q000009:adverse effects; D006801:Humans; D006931:Hyperbaric Oxygenation; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D020127:Recovery of Function; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D015996:Survival Rate; D013997:Time Factors; D016896:Treatment Outcome