In Brief

Boy's death heightens awareness of dry drowning

Respiration

Though water has always been a hazard to be wary of, the idea that someone could drown hours after visiting a swimming pool may seem new to many. On June 1, 10-year-old Johnny Jackson of Charleston, S.C., died while napping more than an hour after returning home from the pool with his mother. The incident has drawn new attention to the phenomenon of dry drowning, a danger long recognized by other names by emergency department physicians.

Medical examiners have found that as many as 15 percent of drowning fatalities are dry drowning victims - those whose respiratory distress comes after an incident in the water. But it comes in different forms and from different causes.

In one form, a muscle spasm of the larynx causes the victim to suffocate. Hitting the water after a long, fast slide or from a high diving board appear to be the most common swimming-related causes of such a spasm, which can happen minutes or hours after the impact. Johnny's dry drowning, however, appeared to have been caused by a delayed reaction to aspirating a large amount of water while swimming - the other common form of dry drowning. In cases where a near-drowning has occurred during swimming, the lungs can be damaged, allowing them to fill with fluid. In such cases, called "post-immersion syndrome," the reduced airflow can cause organs to begin to fail in the hours or days after a near-drowning.

Los Angeles Times

Plastic surgery

More minorities choose to go under the knife

The face of plastic surgery patients is changing. And that's even before the bandages come off.

The American Society of Plastic Surgeons recently reported that 2.6 million cosmetic plastic surgery procedures were performed in 2007 on patients of African, Asian and Hispanic descent.

That's almost a quarter of all procedures and a 13 percent increase over the year before. (And since 2000, cosmetic plastic surgery procedures have increased 173 percent among Hispanics, 129 percent among blacks and 246 percent among Asian Americans.)

There are several reasons for the trend, including the growing economic power of these groups and a willingness to go beyond traditional boundaries. According to the ASPS, the most commonly requested surgical procedures were nose reshaping, liposuction and breast reduction for blacks; nose reshaping, breast augmentation and eyelid surgery for Asian Americans; and breast augmentation, nose reshaping and liposuction for Hispanics.