A few months ago I started a thread on the issue of DCS as an immune response to bubble formation. Here it is:
http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/ask-dr-decompression/279200-dcs-immune-system.html
The concept was pretty well dismissed in that thread.
I recently encountered a situation where someone said that current thinking on DCS is that it is an immune response to bubble formation. Not only did it contradict the consensus of that thread, it suggested that this contradiction was actually the trend of thinking at this time.
I therefore asked for some documentation. I got this reply, which I am told is from a hyberbaric medicine physician.
Can anyone help give me an explanation?
http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/ask-dr-decompression/279200-dcs-immune-system.html
The concept was pretty well dismissed in that thread.
I recently encountered a situation where someone said that current thinking on DCS is that it is an immune response to bubble formation. Not only did it contradict the consensus of that thread, it suggested that this contradiction was actually the trend of thinking at this time.
I therefore asked for some documentation. I got this reply, which I am told is from a hyberbaric medicine physician.
There are many, many articles on the subject. The process is not yet well determined, but there are articles galore looking at various aspects of it. Look in the Rubicon Repository for older articles. Newer articles are still in the original journals only - SPUMS Journal; UHMS Journal; Aviation,Space and Environmental Medicine; Physiology; Applied Physiology: etc. There really isn't anybody who discounts the 'immune system' theory as being essential for the understanding of DCS. There are arguments as to how that works and what other process are involved, but immune-mediated mechanisms are definitely part of the picture. Any modern textbook of Diving Medicine will have at least one chapter on it: Bennett and Elliott, Bove and Davis, Neumann and Thom."
Can anyone help give me an explanation?