Barotrauma overview
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Overview
Barotrauma is physical damage to body tissues caused by a difference in pressure between an air space inside or beside the body and the surrounding gas or liquid.
Barotrauma typically occurs to air spaces within a body when that body moves to or from a higher pressure environment, such as when a SCUBA diver, a free-diving diver or an airplane passenger ascends or descends. Boyle's law defines the relationship between the volume of the air space and the ambient pressure.
Damage occurs in the tissues around the body's air spaces because gases are compressible and the tissues are not. During increases in ambient pressure, the internal air space provides the surrounding tissues with little support to resist the higher external pressure. During decreases in ambient pressure, the higher pressure of the gas inside the air spaces causes damage to the surrounding tissues if that gas becomes trapped.