title: Acute high-altitude illness: a clinically orientated review.
abstract: Acute high-altitude illness is an encompassing term for the range of pathology that the unacclimatised individual can develop at increased altitude. This includes acute mountain sickness, high-altitude cerebral oedema and high-altitude pulmonary oedema. These conditions represent an increasing clinical problem as more individuals are exposed to the hypobaric hypoxic environment of high altitude for both work and leisure. In this review of acute high-altitude illness, the epidemiology, risk factors and pathophysiology are explored, before their prevention and treatment are discussed. Appropriate ascent rate remains the most effective acute high-altitude illness prevention, with pharmacological prophylaxis indicated in selected individuals. Descent is the definitive treatment for acute high-altitude illness, with the adjuncts of oxygen and specific drug therapies.
authors.affiliation: UCL Centre for Altitude, Space and Extreme Environment Medicine, Portex Unit, Institute of Child Health, London, UK ; Integrative Physiology and Critical Illness Group, Clinical and Experimental Sciences, Sir Henry Wellcome Laboratories, Faculty of Medicine, University of Southampton, University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust, Southampton, UK.
authors.forename: Tom
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Smedley
authors.affiliation: Integrative Physiology and Critical Illness Group, Clinical and Experimental Sciences, Sir Henry Wellcome Laboratories, Faculty of Medicine, University of Southampton, University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust, Southampton, UK ; Anaesthesia and Critical Care Research Unit, University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust, Southampton, UK ; NIHR Southampton Respiratory Biomedical Research Unit, Southampton, UK.
authors.forename: Michael Pw
authors.initials: MP
authors.lastname: Grocott
keywords: Acute high-altitude illness; acute mountain sickness; high-altitude cerebral oedema; high-altitude pulmonary oedema; hypoxia