Blood Clots Kill Many Airline Passengers

LONDON (Reuters Health) - Doctors in the UK and Australia said Wednesday that the potentially deadly blood clots sometimes called ``economy class syndrome,'' affect hundreds of passengers each year arriving at their nations' airports.

In the UK, an average of one passenger per month dies of a pulmonary embolism caused by deep vein thrombosis soon after landing at London's Heathrow airport, a consultant at the hospital where victims are taken said.

``These are people who die as they get off the aircraft,'' John Belstead, accident and emergency consultant at Ashford Hospital in Middlesex, told the BBC.

The problem of deep vein thromboses--blood clots in veins deep within the leg--hit the headlines after a previously healthy young woman died following a long flight. Any time a person stays immobile for long periods they are at increased risk for blood pooling in the lower limbs, thereby raising the risk of clot formation.

While Dutch investigators have ruled out any link between blood clots and air travel, some airlines have begun to produce inflight videos showing passengers how to take mild exercises that would minimize the risk. British Airways said Tuesday it would give passengers warning leaflets.

Although deep vein thrombosis in the air has been dubbed economy class syndrome, the UK doctor said his study showed not everyone who died was traveling economy. ``It is just sitting in one place for a long time (that is risky).''

He added, ``It is only happening with the long-haul flights. None of the people who have come in here have flown less than 6 hours.''

In Australia, where many arriving passengers have been on long-haul flights, a surgeon estimated that up to 400 people may be arriving at Sydney airport every year suffering from the deadly clots.

Reginald Lord, a surgeon at Sydney's St. Vincent hospital, told Reuters Television his hospital alone had investigated 122 cases of deep vein thrombosis in the past three years--''a little less than one a week.''

``Now we think, and this is just an estimate, that...there may be say 400 of similar types of patients arriving at Sydney airport annually,'' said Lord, who is also a professor of surgery at the University of New South Wales.

Melbourne law firm Slater & Gordon says it has 800 Australians on its books who want to sue 20 global airlines over economy class syndrome, and many more were likely to sign up as the condition receives greater publicity.

Lord said the number of people affected in Australia was small in proportion to the 14 million passengers who pass through Sydney airport every year. But at one in 100,000 as a ``minimal estimate,'' the condition was common enough to have to be taken seriously.

``Some of us are persuaded that there is a genuine link between travel and this condition,'' he said.

He cited as risk factors the pressurized cabins on aircraft, which slightly reduce oxygen in the blood, the constricted space and the fact that airline passengers frequently suffer dehydration.

``We are in a broad state of ignorance. We need to fill that in,'' he said.

Initiating protocols for mild on-board exercise programs on airlines which cater to long flights around the world will do wonders for preventing future death due to this condition.

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