Ethiologic study of syncope at the height. Case: Patients with syncope, Hospital del Norte - La Paz, November 2016 to April 2017

Abstract

The city of El Alto is located at an altitude of 4,080 meters above the sea level. Place where atmospheric pressure decreases, while the percentage of oxygen in the air remains constant, so the partial pressure of oxygen decreases with altitude, causing people to present some degree of altitude sickness, and may present syncope episodes repetitive due to the transient decrease in cerebral blood flow, which may be of cardiogenic etiology, non-cardiogenic or of unexplained cause and not due to haemorrhage or head trauma or convulsion.

A retrospective, analytical, non-experimental, cross-sectional research was carried out to specify the prodromal, sym ptomatic, cli nical and complementary correlation of syncope in height and in which cases it is neurogenic. The research was conducted on 135 patients who attended to the neurology consu Itation from November 2016 to April 2017. Patients with clear evidence of a headache syncope and patients who attended the consultation due to their routine control were excluded from this study.

The results found were: of 135 patients analyzed, 82 (60,7 %) presented syncope related to an epilepsy, 21 (15,6 %) due to symptomatic epilepsy, 19 (14,1 %) of psychiatric origin, 9 (6,7 %) are related cardiac pathologies and 4 (2,9 %) are caused by other causes. With the results obtained in this study, it was determined that more than half ofthe patients who present syncope in the height, is related to an epileptic origin, in addition it shows that the prevalence is higher in the age group of 11 to 35 years. However, this study is limiting, since the universe in which it was worked is not sufficiently representative for draw definitive conclusions, and it is suggested to continue it.