Abstract

Human physiology is affected by decreasing environmental oxygen, air density, temperature and moisture according to increasing altitude. Intestinal motility is increased at high altitude, although there are controversy studies. The aim of this study is to compare plain abdominal radiography (PAR) for constipation score in healthy individuals according to altitude and determine the correlation between clinician and radiologist. Individuals were selected from the military personnel that came for periodical health control in two cities (A:high altitude, G:sea level) with different altitude. Personnel's medical records were examined retrospectively. Age, sex, PAR, the value of white blood cell (Wbc), hemoglobin (Hb), hematocrit (Hct), platelet (Plt) and sedimentation (ESR) were evaluated. PAR was scored as Fecal Loading (FL) by a general surgeon (GS) and radiologist (R) independently.140 (A:70, G:70) individuals were included in the study. All individuals were male, mean of age was 32.54±5.975 (p<0.05). Wbc and ESR was higher in A (p>0.05). Higher results of Hb, Hct, and Plt were statistically significant in A (p<0.05). The difference at ascending colon, rectosigmoid and total colon scores were statistically significantly higher in G (p<0,05) in GS and the difference at rectosigmoid were statistically higher in G (p<0,05) in R for FL. The intraclass correlation of observers were good for FL assessment on PAR (ICC: 0,60-0,79).There is opposite correlation between altitude with FL on PAR. FL scores were lower at high altitude with some little exceptions. There was good intraobserver correlations between GS and R for assessment of PAR.

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