37
views
0
recommends
+1 Recommend
0 collections
    0
    shares
      • Record: found
      • Abstract: found
      • Article: found
      Is Open Access

      Sex-based differences in the prevalence of acute mountain sickness: a meta-analysis

      review-article

      Read this article at

      Bookmark
          There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

          Abstract

          Background

          When lowlanders rapidly ascend to altitudes > 2500 m, they may develop acute mountain sickness (AMS). The individual susceptibility, ascending velocity, time spent at altitude, activity levels and altitude reached are considered risk factors for AMS. However, it is not clear whether sex is a risk factor. The results have been inconclusive. We conducted a meta-analysis to test whether there were sex-based differences in the prevalence of AMS using Lake Louise Scoring System.

          Methods

          Systematic searches were performed in August 2019 in EMBASE, PubMed, and Web of Science for prospective studies with AMS data for men and women. The titles and abstracts were independently checked in the primary screening step, and the selected full-text articles were independently assessed in the secondary screening step by the two authors (YPH and JLW) based on pre-defined inclusion criteria. The meta-analysis was performed using by the STATA 14.1 software program. A random-effects model was employed.

          Results

          Eighteen eligible prospective studies were included. A total of 7669 participants (2639 [34.4%] women) were tested. The results showed that there was a statistically significant higher prevalence rate of AMS in women than in men ( RR = 1.24, 95%CI 1.09–1.41), regardless of age or race. Howerver, the heterogeneity was significant in the analysis (Tau 2 = 0.0403, Chi 2 = 50.15, df = 17; I 2 = 66.1%, P = 0.000), it was main caused by different numbers of subjects among the studies (coefficient = − 2.17, P = 0.049). Besides, the results showed that there was no evidence of significant publication bias in the combined studies on the basis of Egger’s test (bias coefficient = 1.48, P = 0.052) and Begg’s test ( P = 0.130).

          Conclusions

          According to this study, the statistically significant finding emerging from this study was that women have a higher prevalence of AMS. However, the authors could not exclude studies where patients were on acetazolamide. Our analysis provided a direction for future studies of the relationship of sex and the risk of AMS, such as the pathological mechanism and prevention research.

          Related collections

          Most cited references45

          • Record: found
          • Abstract: not found
          • Article: not found

          High-altitude illness.

            Bookmark
            • Record: found
            • Abstract: found
            • Article: not found

            Critical appraisal of the health research literature: prevalence or incidence of a health problem.

            This article identifies and discusses criteria that can be used by health professionals to critically appraise research articles that estimate the prevalence or incidence of a disease or health problem. These guidelines will help determine the validity and usefulness of such community assessment studies. The criteria relate to the validity of the study methods (design, sampling frame, sample size, outcome measures, measurement and response rate), interpretation of the results and applicability of the findings. The research question "What is the prevalence of dementia in Canada?" is used as an example for this paper.
              Bookmark
              • Record: found
              • Abstract: found
              • Article: not found

              Hypoxia-induced vascular endothelial growth factor expression causes vascular leakage in the brain.

              Formation of cerebral oedema caused by vascular leakage is a major problem in various injuries of the CNS, such as stroke, head injury and high-altitude illness. A common feature of all these disorders is the fact that they are associated with tissue hypoxia. Hypoxia has therefore been suggested to be an important pathogenic factor for the induction of vascular leakage in the brain. Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is known as the major inducer of angiogenesis. Originally, however, it was described as a vascular permeability factor. As VEGF gene expression was shown to be upregulated by hypoxia, increased VEGF expression may link hypoxia and vascular leakage in the CNS in vivo. To delineate the role of VEGF in vascular leakage in the brain, we studied the effect of hypoxia on VEGF expression and vascular permeability in the brains of mice in vivo. Hypoxic exposure led to a significant increase in the levels of VEGF mRNA and protein in mouse brain that correlated with the severity of the hypoxic stimulus. Measurement of vascular permeability using the fluorescent marker sodium fluorescein revealed a two-fold increase in fluorescence intensity in hypoxic brains, indicative of significant vascular leakage. Inhibition of VEGF activity by a neutralizing antibody completely blocked the hypoxia-induced increase in vascular permeability. In conclusion, our data show that VEGF is responsible for hypoxia-induced augmentation in vascular leakage following tissue hypoxia. Our findings might provide the basis for new therapeutic concepts for the treatment of cerebral oedema.
                Bookmark

                Author and article information

                Contributors
                333333@163.com
                Journal
                Mil Med Res
                Mil Med Res
                Military Medical Research
                BioMed Central (London )
                2095-7467
                2054-9369
                9 December 2019
                9 December 2019
                2019
                : 6
                : 38
                Affiliations
                Department of Military Medical Geography, Army Medical Service Training Base, Army Medical University, Chongqing, 400038 China
                Article
                228
                10.1186/s40779-019-0228-3
                6900850
                31813379
                7772571b-e127-474c-ae65-4b158177ea67
                © The Author(s). 2019

                Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ( http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.

                History
                : 19 August 2019
                : 13 November 2019
                Funding
                Funded by: FundRef http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100001809, National Natural Science Foundation of China;
                Award ID: 81571843
                Funded by: Key Special Program of Logistic Scientific Research of PLA
                Award ID: BLJ18J005
                Categories
                Review
                Custom metadata
                © The Author(s) 2019

                prevalence,sex differences,acute mountain sickness,risk factors

                Comments

                Comment on this article