Surgery at altitude, part I

One of our newest endeavors is a research project on thoracic surgery at moderate altitude.  We’ve completed our review of existing literature, and developed our patient parameters and data collection points.

The main base of our operations is Flagstaff, Arizona, which is located at 7000 ft. (2,000 meters) making it the highest altitude cardiothoracic program in the United States.  The Flagstaff site has several strengths in that much of our patient population comes from the surrounding areas; which are located at both higher and lower elevations.  However, one of the weaknesses in Flagstaff is our small patient population – as a single surgeon site devoted to both cardiac and thoracic surgery – our lung surgery volumes are fairly small.

Right now, I am doing some of the preliminary work with the hospital – meeting with staff to apply for IRB approval, and formalizing the data collection process.  I am also interested in recruiting surgeons from other sites to participate in data collection.   Dedicated thoracic surgeons with large thoracic surgery practices would be ideal – and all results will be published and presented by surgeon/ and site.

We are particularly interested in recruiting surgeons from the following areas:

1.  La Paz, Bolivia

2.  Quito, Ecuador

3.  Bogotá, Colombia

4.  Mexico City, DF  – Mexico

These four cities combined house many millions of people living at moderate altitudes, and would help provide for a wider and more expansive collection of data on patients undergoing thoracic surgery.  Demographic differences (such as pre-existing thoracic diseases, incidence of heavy cigarette smoking, etc.) of geographic locales will also allow for further points of comparison.

Please contact Cirugia de Torax if you are interested in participating.  All participating surgeons and institutions will receive credit (in accordance to level of participation) in any and all subsequent professional and scientific publications.

You can also contact me, K. Eckland, directly at : k.eckland@gmail.com.  Please place ‘cirugia de torax’ or ‘altitude project’ in the sibject line.

Author: K Eckland

World of Thoracic Surgery is a blog about the work, research, and practices of thoracic surgeons around the world. It includes case studies, [sometimes] dry research, interviews with thoracic surgeons along with patient perspectives, and feedback. View all posts by K Eckland