[Health hazards associated with flying and diving. ENT aspects]

The popularity of scuba diving among the general public and the great increase in air travel are increasingly associated with health problems. In the ENT sector, such problems mainly take the form of barotrauma that can arise from changes in the volume of gases enclosed within body cavities, due to fluctuations in pressure during diving and air travel. More rarely, decompression illness can occur when the required time for decompression is ignored by a diver coming up to the surface, or when a sudden loss of pressure occurs in the cabin of a plane, leading to the liberation of nitrogen dissolved in body fluids. Pathomechanisms, symptoms and treatment of barotrauma affecting the middle and inner ear and the sinuses, together with the effects of decompression errors on the organs of hearing and balance, are described, and suggestions for their prevention given. Fitness for diving and air travel, together with diseases that render these inadvisable, are discussed.