A histopathologic and immunocytochemical study of the spinal cord in amateur and professional divers

To clarify the influence of diving activity on the central nervous system, we studied 10 amateur and 10 professional deceased divers with emphasis on the presence of subacute or chronic pathologic changes in the spinal cord. Of the 10 professional divers (median age 38 yr; range 29-52; median experience in excess of 13 yr), 7 were experienced saturation divers. Five had dived to a maximum depth of 150 meters of seawater, the 2 others to 300 and 500 msw, respectively. Five of the professional divers had experienced decompression sickness. The experience of the amateur divers (median age 29 yr; range 17-51) varied from a few dives to many years of recreational diving. The spinal cords were formalin-fixated and routinely processed for neuropathologic examination, which included light microscopy after immunostaining for glial fibrillary acidic protein and monocyte-macrophage-microglial markers. The microscopic examination did not reveal previous spinal cord damage. Thus, diving activity, saturation diving to extreme depths included, does not in itself seem to lead to necrosis, degeneration, or scar formation in the human spinal cord.