Cardiovascular disease and airline travel

Hypoxic Challenge Testing (Fitness to Fly) in children with complex congenital heart disease

“…Although part of the response to hypobaric hypoxia includes a mild tachycardia,17 we found the heart rate did not change significantly in any of the groups. QTc was assessed as hypoxia prolongs cardiac repolarisation measured by QTc; for example, a small study of 11 healthy adults found that breathing 11% oxygen led to significant increases in QTc,18 and a study of nine mountaineers found significantly prolonged QTc when at high altitude (ranging 4400–7800 m) 19.…”

Is heart failure an obstacle to air travel?

“…Carrying luggage for long distances, access to the airport, long delays at security, check in, and boarding can be difficult. It can be also psychologically stressful for passengers who have anxiety before and during a flight, especially at take-off and landing (11). It was shown that patients with HF with high anxiety levels have shorter event-free survival than patients with low anxiety levels (12).…”

The older traveller

“…The hazard is higher in patients with pre-existing risk factors, e.g. older age, malignancy, obesity, recent surgeries, inherited or acquired thrombophilia, polycythaemia or oestrogen therapy [10,18]. As pointed out by Lee et al [10] patients at the highest risk of venous thromboembolism may benefit from well fitted medical compression stockings and subcutaneous enoxaparin administered before and 1 day after air travel if the journey lasts more than 3 hours.…”