Microhemorrhages in the Brains of Mountaineers who Survived High Altitude Cerebral Edema (HACE)

Ziele: Brain MRI during high altitude illness is not easy. Usually no scanner is around during the illness. Post-mortem exams showed multiple micro-hemorrhages (MH) in brains of HACE victims. We hypothesized MH may also occur in non-lethal HACE and deposits of hemosiderin indicative of previous MH can be found in HACE survivors. Methode: We performed brain MRI in 36 mountaineers: HACE survivors (n=10), subjects who had suffered from severe acute mountain sickness (AMS, n=11), subjects who had had high altitude pulmonary edema (HAPE, n=8) and mountaineers with repeated high altitude exposure (>7000m without addit…