Table 2.
Incidence of acute mountain sickness (AMS) and means of arterial oxygen saturation (SaO2) and heart rate (HR) with 95% CI in 17–21-year-old native Tibetan and Han Chinese students
| Native Tibetan | Han Chinese | |||||
| By train (n=859) | By train (n=395) | By air (n=406) | ||||
| Lowland | ||||||
| AMS-like symptoms | 0.011 | (0.004–0.017) | 0.015 | (0.003–0.027) | 0.015 | (0.003–0.027) |
| SaO2 (%) | 99.2 | (99.1–99.3) | 99.2‡ | (99.0–99.4) | 98.9§ | (98.7–99.1) |
| HR (bpm*) | 72.1 | (71.6–72.5) | 71.6 | (70.5–72.7) | 71.1 | (70.1–72.1) |
| Highland | ||||||
| AMS | 0.012† | (0.004–0.020) | 0.327‡ | (0.280–0.373) | 0.429§ | (0.380–0.477) |
| SaO2 (%) | 91.1† | (90.8–91.3) | 88.1 | (87.9–88.3) | 87.9§ | (87.6–88.1) |
| HR (bpm*) | 72.7† | (72.1–73.2) | 82.2 | (81.2–83.2) | 83.5§ | (82.4–84.5) |
*For Han Chinese students, the results are stratified according to the type of transportation from lowland China to Lhasa.
†p<0.05 native Tibetan versus Han Chinese by train.
‡p<0.05 Han Chinese by train versus Han Chinese by air.
§p<0.05 native Tibetan versus Han Chinese by air.
bpm, beats per minute.
Data were analysed using one way analysis of variance for comparison of the differences of SaO2 and HR between native
Tibetan and Han Chinese by different transpotation. X2 test was performed for comparing incidence of AMS between
native Tibetan and Han Chinese by different transportation.