Proposals for International Standardization in the Research and Documentation of High Altitude Medicine

High altitude research has always been hampered because only small populations could be investigated in the field, and most of the severe high altitude complications show up only in reports of a single case. When one attempts to group cases or reports in order to achieve statistics with more meaning, not much is gained. Various authors use identical terms to denote different high altitude reactions and their symptoms. The lack of common terms and of a commonly applicable index for grouping people according to altitude exposure could be remedied by systematic terminology and a high altitude exposure index. The Documentation Center for High Altitude Medicine has such a system, which in the past several years has proved to be practical.