Fig 1.
Flow chart describing study groups.
* The divers were divided into early recompression group (<48 hours) and delayed recompression group (≥48 hours from surfacing). The delayed group was further divided by the time to symptoms onset.
Table 1.
Patients' Baseline characteristics: Early (<48 hours) and Delayed (≥48 hours) recompression groups.
Table 2.
DCS and recompression characteristics: Early (<48 hours) and Delayed (≥48 hours) recompression groups’ recompression characteristics.
Table 3.
Symptoms distribution: Early (<48 hours) and Delayed (≥48 hours) recompression groups’ symptoms distribution.
Fig 2.
Clinical outcome of the early and delayed groups.
* Clinical outcome was not significantly different between the delayed and early groups (χ2 = 0.093, p = 0.955). Clinical outcome was divided to an ordinal variable of 3 values as shown. Graph values shown in %.
Fig 3.
Clinical outcome and time to recompression in the delayed treatment group.
* Treatment after 48, 72 and 96 hours from surfacing showed no significant differences in clinical outcome. Time to recompression was not associated with clinical outcome. Graph values shown in %.
Fig 4.
Clinical outcome and the treatment tables.
* 84% and 13% of divers treated with US Navy Table 6 had complete and partial recovery compared to 66.7% and 18.5% in divers treated with 2 ATA table for 90 minutes. US Navy Table 6 had better clinical outcome than Table 2 ATA table, yet not statistically significant (χ2 = 3.26 df = = 1 p = 0.07). Graph values shown in %.
Fig 5.
Clinical outcome by treatment table divided to severity subgroups.
* Divers with moderate symptoms treated with US Navy Table 6 had 84.6% complete recovery compared to 71.4% in divers treated with 2 ATA table for 90 minutes (χ2 = 6.26, df = 2, p = 0.04). Note US Navy Table 6 results in a trend to better outcome irrespective of severity of symptoms, yet in mild and moderate symptoms, it did not reach statistical significance.
Table 4.
Published studies in the last decades showing the association between clinical outcome and time to recompression.