Barotrauma is a physical injury to the tissues in the body that is caused by a variation in pressure between an air space beside or inside the body and the surrounding fluid. It normally arises to air spaces in the human body when it moves to or from an environment with higher pressure. Damage also arises in the tissues around the air spaces of the body due to gasses are compressible and the tissues are not. During rising in ambient pressure, the internal air space gives the surrounding tissues with slight support to defy the much greater external pressure.
During declines in ambient pressure, the greater pressure of the gas inside the air spaces triggers injury to the surrounding tissues if that gas becomes cornered. Some of the tissues or organs that can be easily injured due to barotraumas are teeth, bone, skin, eyes, lungs, paranasal sinuses and middle ear. This condition can affect the inner, middle or external part of the ear.
Inner ear barotrauma (IEBT) although much less known than middle ear barotraumas (MEBT) shares same mechanism, mechanical trauma to the inner ear can also lead to changeable levels of sensorineural and conductive hearing loss, as well as vertigo.
On the other hand, MEBT is the most frequent being experienced by a lot of divers by between ten to 30 percent of them and it is because of inadequate equilibration of the middle ear. Last is the external ear barotrauma. This may arise on slope if high pressure air is cornered in the external auditory canal.
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