Pulmonary Involvement in Decompression Sickness of a Self Contained Underwater Breath Apparatus Diver

So Won Lee; Sung Shine Shim; Jinha Choi; Yookyung Kim

doi:10.5763/kjsm.2013.31.1.30

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Lee, Shim, Choi, and Kim: Pulmonary Involvement in Decompression Sickness of a Self Contained Underwater Breath Apparatus Diver

Case Report

Korean J Sports Med 2013;31(1):30-33.

Published online: 10 January 2013

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5763/kjsm.2013.31.1.30

Pulmonary Involvement in Decompression Sickness of a Self Contained Underwater Breath Apparatus Diver

So Won Lee, Sung Shine Shim, Jinha Choi, Yookyung Kim

Department of Radiology, Ewha Womans University Mokdong Hospital, Ewha Womans University School of Medicine, Seoul, Korea

Correspondence: Sung Shine Shim Department of Radiology, Ewha Womans University Mokdong Hospital, Ewha Womans University School of Medicine, 1071 Anyangcheon-ro, Yangcheon-gu, Seoul 158-710, Korea Tel: +82-2-2650-5380, Fax: +82-2-2650-8891 E-mail: sinisim@ewha.ac.kr

Received 27 March 2013 Revised 16 May 2013 Accepted 19 May 2013

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Decompression sickness is a self contained underwater breath apparatus (SCUBA)-related injury with various symptoms and is considered an extreme emergency condition. This is a case of pulmonary involvement in decompression sickness in a 26-year-old SCUBA diver. Although pulmonary involvement in decompression sickness is a potentially severe condition that requires immediate treatment, this condition can be under- or misdiagnosed, and evaluation of this disease by imaging findings is not clearly understood. We experienced a case of pulmonary involvement in decompression sickness and herein present the chest computed tomography and simple radiograph findings associated with this condition.

Keywords: Self contained underwater breath apparatus diving, Dyspnea, Decompression sickness

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Fig. 1.

Initial chest radiography shows patchy increased opacities in both lower lung zones.

Fig. 2.

Chest computed tomography scan shows patchy ground-glass opacities in the right-middle lobe, both lower lobes, and a small portion of the right-upper lobe.

Fig. 3.

Chest radiography obtained 4 days after that pre-sented in Fig. 1 shows complete resolution of pulmonary edema.

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