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Oxygen saturation of children in Pakistan's high mountain pastoral communities
  1. Spenta Kakalia1,
  2. Adnan Khan2
  1. 1 Department of Paediatrics, CMH Lahore Medical College, Lahore, Pakistan
  2. 2 Department of Mathematics, Lahore University of Management Sciences, Lahore, Pakistan
  1. Correspondence to Dr Spenta Kakalia, CMH Lahore Medical College, Abdur Rehman Road, Lahore 54600, Pakistan; spenta{at}gmail.com

https://doi.org/10.1136/archdischild-2016-311275

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    Introduction

    In Pakistan's high mountain regions, pastoralism is still practised with families travelling with livestock to summer pastures between 3000 and 4700 m. There have been no studies on oxygen saturation (SaO2) in children in these remote communities. Given their inaccessibility by metalled roads, pastoralists access primary medical care units by foot, travelling over hazardous terrain.

    Previous studies on oxygen saturation in children at altitude were in locations accessible by metalled roads and hence, fully serviced. This study's contribution is measuring SaO2 in children in remote Karakoram and Hindu Kush pastures.

    Methods

    This cross-sectional study recorded SaO2 in five consecutive pastures (3043–3750 m) in Pakistan's Hindu Kush and Karakoram mountains; children at 217 m served as reference. These pastures are accessible …

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors The first author travelled to the pastures, collected the data and was responsible for the literature review and initial writing of the manuscript. The second author was responsible for the statistical analysis and contributed to the final writing of the manuscript.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Ethics approval CMH Lahore Medical College, Lahore, Pakistan.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; internally peer reviewed.