Characteristics of In-Flight Stroke in Korea (P3.264)

Objective: To investigate the clinical characteristics of in-flight stroke cases in Korea. Background: Atmospheric pressure decrease, low humidity and restricted motion take place during flight, and these environment change can precipitate the development of stroke. However, description of in-flight stroke case series has been limited until now. Design/Methods: Since the opening of Incheon international airport in 2001, our hospital branch has been located at the airport and all the emergency stroke patients have been referred to our hospital. We performed retrospective review of the prospectively collected stroke registry from January 2001 to October 2016. Routine stroke work up including brain MRI and and etiologic investigation was performed in all the patients. Results: During the study period, 18 in-flight stroke cases were identified among total 8542 ischemic stroke patients (11 men, 60±13.7 years old). Fifteen patients had cerebral infarction, and two patients had transient ischemic attack. One patient was diagnosed as cerebral venous thrombosis. On etiological classification, 10 large artery atherothrombosis, 1 septic embolism, 1 cryptogenic stroke, and 3 cardioembolism were identified. Nine patients reported to experience symptom during or immediately before (within 10 minutes) landing. Ten patients had flight for six hours or more. Compared to the patients with long flight time(≥6hrs), those with short flight time ( Conclusions: In-flight stroke is uncommon, and can easily be neglected during flight, which result in poor outcome. The stroke risk seems to be relatively high around landing, especially in the travelers with short flight time, and the mechanism of stroke onset during landing needs to be investigated. Disclosure: Dr. Park has nothing to disclose. Dr. Yoon has nothing to disclose. Dr. Lee has nothing to disclose. Dr. Oh has nothing to disclose. Dr. Park has nothing to disclose. Dr. Lee has nothing to disclose. Dr. Rha has nothing to disclose.