Tag Archives: flying

General

Pneumocephalus And Air Transport

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Everybody remembers Boyle’s law, right?

Volume of a gas = k / Pressure     (where K is a constant)

Which means that, as pressure goes down, the volume of a gas increases. This is important for patients who have a pneumothorax and get on an airplane. As the plane ascends the pneumothorax gets bigger and they may have serious problems. Click here to see guidelines on flying after pneumothorax.

Well, what happens if you have air bubbles in your head (pneumocephalus)? Some patients with serious head injury may have this condition but need to be transported by air to definitive care. Most recently, this has been a consideration in military medical evacuation flights out of Afghanistan.

A paper from the US Army and Air Force studied 21 soldiers (small series) who were evacuated by air with known pneumocephalus. The volume of air was estimated by CT prior to transport, and ranged from less than 1ml to 43ml. None of the patients suffered neurologic deterioration during flight, and 3 who had external ventricular drainage (EVD) showed no significant change in intracranial pressure.

Bottom line: Only two cases of tension pneumocephalus have ever been described. Neither occurred in trauma patients. While expanding pneumothorax may be a problem during commercial flight, there is still little data on tension pneumocephalus. It works for the military because the soldiers are in a flying ICU and can be treated immediately if a problem develops. Not so in commercial aircraft, so beware! But remember, medical helicopters don’t fly high enough to create tension problems in any part of the body, so they are not an issue.

Related posts:

Reference: Aeromedical evacuation of patients with pneumocephalus: outcomes in 21 cases. Aviation Space Env Med 79(1):30-35, 2008.

General

Flying After Pneumothorax

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Patients who have sustained a traumatic pneumothorax occasionally ask how soon they can fly in an airplane after they are discharged. What’s the right answer?

The basic problem has to do with Boyle’s Law (remember that from high school?). The volume of a gas varies inversely with the barometric pressure. So the lower the pressure, the larger a volume of gas becomes. Most of us hang out pretty close to sea level, so this is not an issue.

However, flying in a commercial airliner is different. Even though the aircraft may cruise at 30,000+ feet, the inside of the cabin remains considerably lower though not at sea level. Typically, the cabin altitude goes up to about 8,000 to 9,000 feet. Using Boyle’s law, any volume of gas (say, a pneumothorax in your chest), will increase by about a third on a commercial flight. 

The physiologic effect of this increase depends upon the patient. If they are young and fit, they may never know anything is happening. But if they are elderly and/or have a limited pulmonary reserve, it may compromise enough lung function to make them symptomatic.

Commercial guidelines for travel after pneumothorax range from 2-6 weeks. The Aerospace Medical Association published guidelines that state that 2-3 weeks is acceptable. The Orlando Regional Medical Center reviewed the literature and devised a practice guideline that has a single Level 2 recommendation that commercial air travel is safe 2 weeks after resolution of the pneumothorax, and that a chest xray should be obtained immediately prior to travel to confirm resolution.

Bottom line: Patients can safely travel on commercial aircraft 2 weeks after resolution of pneumothorax. Ideally, a chest xray should be obtained shortly before travel to confirm that it is gone. Helicopter travel is okay at any time, since they typically fly at 1,500 feet or less.

References:

  • Practice Guideline, Orlando Regional Medical Center. Air travel following traumatic pneumothorax. October 2009.
  • Medical Guidelines for Airline Travel, 2nd edition. Aerospace Medical Association. Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine 74(5) Section II Supplement, May 2003.