Military medicine
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Emergency physician evaluation of a novel surgical cricothyroidotomy tool in simulated combat and clinical environments.
We sought to investigate the performance of a novel cricothyroidotomy CRIC device compared to the traditional surgical in both simulated combat environments and the emergency department (ED) setting. Twenty U. S. ⋯ Time to incision, time to procedural completion, and rate of major and minor complications were not significantly different between the standard surgical method and the CRIC device (p > 0.05). In the simulated ED setting, 60% of participants preferred the standard surgical method (95% confidence interval: 38.5-81.5), whereas in the simulated combat settings, 50% of participants preferred each device (95% confidence interval: 28.1-71.9). In our population, we observed similar operator performance characteristics and physician preferences between the 2 methods in all simulated cricothyroidotomy settings.