Breath-hold divers employ glossopharyngeal insufflation (GI) in order to prevent the lungs from compressing at great depth and to increase intrapulmonary oxygen stores, thus increasing breath-hold time. The presented case study shows the physiological data and dynamic magnetic resonance imaging (dMRI) findings of acute hyperinflation, deliberately induced by GI, in a breath-hold diver and discu...

Knowledge regarding arterial blood pressure (ABP) values during breath-hold diving is scanty. It derives from a few reports of measurements performed at the water's surface, showing slight or no increase in ABP, and from a single study of two simulated deep breath-hold dives in a hyperbaric chamber. Simulated dives showed an increase in ABP to values considered life threatening by standard clin...

The purpose of this study was to determine the influence of tidal volume, breathing pattern, and beginning lung volume on the modulation of efferent, muscle sympathetic nerve activity (MSNA) in humans. In seven supine, healthy subjects, we measured MSNA (microneurography of the right peroneal nerve) and beat to beat arterial blood pressure during 1) low-frequency breathing (fb = 12 breaths/min)...

A 67 year old lady with hypertension, type two diabetes mellitus, hypothyroidism, depression and deep vein thrombosis, independent in activities of daily living who was admitted one month history lethargy. She noted to have deterioration the living, complaining shortness breath.

The patient is 56 years old. He likes sports, in particular deep-sea diving. After 2 decompression incidents, he was worked up by a cardiologist and a patent foramen ovale (PFO) was found. Incidentally, he mentioned that he has been increasingly short of breath during physical exercise. The PFO was closed (Fig. 1) in an outpatient procedure, and the next day, already, he enjoyed an improved exe...

A 69-year-old female with history of immobilization presented with shortness of breath and generalized weakness and was found to have large saddle pulmonary embolus on CT scan. Further evaluation with a transthoracic echocardiography revealed a moderately enlarged and hypokinetic right ventricle with a pulmonary artery clot of about 1.5 cm seen at the bifurcation while the ultrasound of the leg...

In cats the sensitivity of the respiratory tract to stimulation with diethyl ether was studied during nitrous oxide, cyclopropane, halothane and trichloroethylene anaesthesia. Nitrous oxide caused little change in sensitivity; halothane and trichloroethylene caused a gradually decreasing sensitivity; and cyclopropane depressed the response only in deep anaesthesia. In addition, following stimul...

The diagnosis of pulmonary embolism should be considered in any patient who presents with shortness of breath and pleuritic chest pain, even though most cases occur in patients with known risk factors, such as a history of deep venous thrombosis, immobilization, estrogen or birth control pill use, or recent surgery. More than 300,000 cases of pulmonary embolism are diagnosed each year and 50,00...

A 34-year-old black man presented to the emergency department with right-sided pleuritic chest pain, productive cough, low grade fever, and dyspnea. He had a history of emphysema, deep vein thrombosis, protein C and S deficiency, and inferior vena cava filter. His physical exam was significant for fever, tachypnea, tachycardia, and decreased breath sounds over the right upper and middle lung fi...