Hematological indices, mountain sickness and MRI brain abnormalities in professional and amateur mountain climbers after altitude exposure.

The purpose of this work was to correlate the presence of brain abnormalities on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with changes in hematological variables and the presence of mountain sickness in 21 mountain climbers involved in two different expeditions to high mountains, Everest and Aconcagua, without supplementary oxygen and recommended acclimatization for this kind of activities. The climbers underwent medical examination, hematological studies, electrocardiogram and MRI of the cerebrum. Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used to evaluate the changes in hematocrit, hemoglobin, red blood cells, iron and ferritin. Mountain sickness was correlated with the age of the climbers and the altitude ascended, final hemoglobin and final mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration. There were no differences related to conditions of professional or amateur climbers and the changes of those hematological variables, as seen with the nominal regression. We found more brain damage on MRI in amateur than professional climbers. Amateur climbers are more susceptible to suffer acute mountain sickness and permanent cerebral damage than professional climbers after high altitude exposure.