International Airports and Pulmonary Thromboembolism.

Abstract

It is now 24 years since the opening of New Tokyo International Airport. Nippon Medical School New Tokyo International Airport Clinic (Airport Clinic) was opened in December 1992 and is located in terminal 2 of the airport. We have treated 85,545 airport personnel (72.5%), 28,662 passengers (24.3%) and 3,746 other patients (3.2%), a total of 117,953 patients in its 8 years and 4 months of services so far. There were 8,485 non-Japanese patients (7.2%). There were 47 incidents of cardio-pulmonary arrest at the clinic of which 25 were suspected to be caused by pulmonary thromboembolism, otherwise known as the economy-class syndrome. Furthermore, out of the 75 severe and serious cases of pulmonary thromboembolism, there were 50 survivals and 25 fatalities. 14 of these cases were confirmed to be pulmonary thromboembolism while 61 cases were suspected of this disease. The age ranged from 21 to 95 with an average age of 59.1 years and the ratio of male to female patients was 31:44. The age range of the 14 confirmed cases were from 48 to 78 with an average age of 62.0 years and the male to female ratio was 1:13. There were 2 fatalities in the confirmed cases; both were women aged 66 and 69. The age of the 12 survival cases ranged from 48 to 78 with and average age of 61.0 years and the male to female ratio was 1:11. All these patients are now socially rehabilitated. The medical consultation rate was 1 in 4,000, the number of emergency medical care was 1 in 80,000 and the number of fatalities was 1 in 4 million passengers, roughly calculating from the figure of 26 million passengers a year at Narita Airport. The number of fatalities resulting from pulmonary thromboembolism was estimated at 1 in 7.5 million.