Minerva anestesiologica
-
Minerva anestesiologica · Mar 1994
[Monitoring of cuff pressure in double-lumen endotracheal tubes during anesthesia for thoracic surgery].
It is well known that cuff overinflation in endotracheal tubes may cause serious damage to the tracheal mucosa. Cuff overinflation is also related to the diffusion of nitrous oxide across the cuff membrane, thus giving way to a progressive volume/pressure increase up to overcoming, critical capillaric perfusion pressure. The kinetics of hi-lo cuff-pressure in single-lumen endotracheal tubes during general anesthesia using nitrous oxide has been well documented. ⋯ In ten of these case, special equipment was used in order to keep the cuff-pressures steady and at the lowest sealing level. The pressure shows the same trend in both cuffs but, depending on the medium calibre of the main left bronchus and the volume/pressure relations of the endobronchial cuffs, the pressure in the latter increases faster. The investigation was performed using an original equipment developed by the authors; such equipment is able not only to monitor the cuff-pressures, but also to maintain them at steady controlled levels (below 20 cm water seal), by means of counterregulating all the volume variations due either to anesthetic requirements, or to the diffusion of nitrous oxide.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)