Three Irish doctors to test new breathing system on Mount Everest

Three Irish doctors are among an international mountaineering team leaving for Mount Everest this month to study the effects of low oxygen or hypoxia on human physiology.

The expedition, which hopes to record the first measurements of oxygen levels in the blood on Everest's summit, aims to use its findings to improve care of the critically ill.

It will test out a new closed circuit breathing system designed by Irish trainee anaesthetist and mountaineer Dr Roger McMorrow which may assist children with cystic fibrosis and people with chronic lung disease or other illnesses requiring supplementary oxygen use.

The three Irishmen - Queen's University Belfast (QUB) graduates Dr McMorrow (31) and Dr Nigel Hart (40), and Dr Michael O'Dwyer (31), originally from Clonmel, Co Tipperary - are among seven anaesthetists, one vascular surgeon and two general practitioners (GP) on the group led by British doctor Mike Grocott.

The project has been co-ordinated by the UCL Centre for Altitude, Space and Extreme Environment Medicine (Case medicine) at University College, London, and numbers 57 people in total, including scientific support staff. An additional 200 trekkers have agreed to assist with medical testing during their travel into Everest base camp in Nepal.

The Caudwell Xtreme Everest medical study will require the 10 climbers to build a laboratory at 7,000m (22,966ft) on the Western Cwm.

The double-skinned tent with a solid floor and generator will be fitted with medical equipment, including exercise bikes.

The expedition is non-commercial, unguided, and the doctors climbed the 8,201m Himalayan peak, Cho Oyu, during two consecutive expeditions as part of their preparation for Everest.

Dr McMorrow's new breathing system combines efficiency of oxygen delivery with lighter, more portable equipment.

"Patients on supplementary oxygen at home are either tied to a large cylinder or are carrying a small cylinder which doesn't give oxygen for very long. This means they can't exercise, which then increases their dependency on oxygen."

Dr McMorrow believes his device may allow a mountaineer to "run on the South Col", and to revolutionise the lives of chronically ill patients who are, he says, "climbing their own Everest every day".

BBC Horizon and the Discovery channel will be documenting the study and adventure. It has been endorsed by Dawson Stelfox, Belfast architect and first Irishman to climb Mount Everest, and by Michael Power, president of the Intensive Care Society of Ireland.

The main sponsor is a British entrepreneur, John Caudwell, who is participating as a trekker in the expedition, while scientific studies in the lead-up to the expedition were supported by a research grant from medical gases specialist, BOC Medical.