© 2004 BMJ Publishing Group Ltd & British Thoracic Society
EDITORIAL
Flying with respiratory disease
What happens to patients with respiratory disease when they fly?
Hammersmith Hospitals NHS Trust and National Heart & Lung Division, Imperial College, London, UK
Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Dr R K Coker
Respiratory Medicine, Hammersmith Hospital, London W12 0HS, UK; robina.coker@imperial.ac.uk
Updated guidelines now available but more research is needed into the safety of air travel for those with respiratory disease
Keywords: asthma; chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; air travel
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
Despite current concerns about terrorism, commercial air travel remains a common mode of travel for millions. It has been estimated that a single major UK airline carries over 30 million passengers each year. There are no data available to indicate how many passengers flying on commercial aircraft have respiratory disease, but as far back as 1974 it was estimated that around 5% of passengers were ambulatory patients. As the average age of western populations continues to rise, so does the propensity for passengers to have some form of medical condition. In addition, flights are getting longer and aircraft bigger. The new Airbus 380, for example, will carry around 600 passengers for up to and in some cases exceeding 20 hours.
Air travel is in general safe, even for those with medical conditions, and there are no established methods for determining morbidity associated with air travel. Nevertheless,
CiteULike 
Complore 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us 
Digg 
Reddit 
Technorati What's this?
Services
- Email this link to a friend
- Similar articles in this journal
- Similar articles in PubMed
- Add article to my folders
- Download to citation manager
- Request Permissions
Citing Articles
Google Scholar
PubMed
Topic Collections
Bookmark with
Register for free content
The full back archive is now available for all BMJ Journals. Institutional subscribers may access the entire archive as part of their subscription. Personal subscribers will also have access to all content when logged in. Non-subscribers who register have free access to all articles published before 2006 right back to volume 1 issue 1. Register here to access the free archive of all BMJ Journals.
Don't forget to sign up for content alerts so you keep up to date with all the articles as they are published.
