Ascent from ground level to the conditions of 7000 to 8000 ft lowered oxygen saturation by approximately 4 percentage points. This level of hypoxemia was insufficient to affect the occurrence of acute mountain sickness but did contribute to the increased frequency of reports of discomfort in unacclimatized participants after 3 to 9 hours. (ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT00326703 [ClinicalTrials.gov].).

The absence of significant changes in sleep and post-sleep neurobehavioral performance associated with pronounced oxygen desaturation during sleep was unexpected. Further study is needed to determine if the same effects occur in women and to characterize the changes in respiratory physiology that occur during sleep at 2438 m in both sexes.

No abstract

A program for the Hewlett Packard 41 series programmable calculator that determines sample size, power, and least detectable relative risk for comparative studies with independent groups is described. The user may specify any ratio of cases to controls (or exposed to unexposed subjects) and, if calculating least detectable relative risks, may specify whether the study is a case-control or cohort study.