Articles: intubation.
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Journal of anesthesia · Aug 2020
Observational StudySummary of 20 tracheal intubation by anesthesiologists for patients with severe COVID-19 pneumonia: retrospective case series.
SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is announced and it is very important to share our experience to the critical care community in the early stage. Urgent intubation team was organized by anesthesiologists and was dispatched upon request. We have retrospectively reviewed medical charts of 20 critically ill patients with Covid-19 pneumonia who required tracheal intubation from February 17 to March 19 in Wuhan No.1 hospital, China. ⋯ Although intubation improved SPO2, reduced PaCO2 and blood lactate, seven of 20 patients died within 7-days after tracheal intubation. Non-survivors showed significantly lower SPO2 and higher PaCO2 and blood lactate compared to survivors. For those who are anticipated to deteriorate severe pneumonia with poor prognosis, earlier respiratory support with tracheal intubation may be advised to improve outcome.
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Videolaryngoscopes are crucial components of a difficult airway cart. Issues of cost and availability, however, remain a problem. We compared the combination of an endoscope used in conjunction with the Macintosh laryngoscope with established videolaryngoscopes and the Macintosh laryngoscope using the intubation difficulty scale (IDS) score. ⋯ The performance of videoendoscope was comparable to C-MAC D Blade and superior to Truview EVO2 and Macintosh laryngoscope with respect to the IDS score and may thereby provide an effective alternative to commercial videolaryngoscopes in low resource settings.
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The number of patients requiring tracheal intubation rose dramatically in March and April 2020 with the COVID-19 outbreak. Our thoracic surgery department has seen an increased incidence of severe pneumomediastinum referred for surgical opinion in intubated patients with COVID-19 pneumonitis. ⋯ We hypothesise that the mechanism for this is the aggressive disease pathophysiology with an increased risk of alveolar damage and tracheobronchial injury, along with the use of larger-bore tracheal tubes and higher ventilation pressures. We present this case series in order to highlight the increased risk of this potentially life-threatening complication among the COVID-19 patient cohort and offer guidance for its management to critical care physicians.
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Airway management in obese patients is associated with increased risk of difficult airway and intubation. After failed intubation, supraglottic airway-guided flexible bronchoscopic intubation (SAGFBI) may be required. It is uncertain whether SAGFBI is best performed in the ramped versus conventional supine "sniffing air" position. We conducted a feasibility study to evaluate the logistics of positioning, compared glottic views, and evaluated SAGFBI success rates. ⋯ Our pilot study was completed within 5 months, achieved low dropout rate and protocol feasibility was established. SAGFBI was successfully and safely performed in obese patients, with a median time of 91.5 s. The time taken for SAGFBI was similar to awake intubation using FBI and videolaryngoscopy. Our study provided preliminary data supporting future, larger-scale studies to evaluate glottic views in the ramped versus supine positions.
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Anesthesia and analgesia · Aug 2020
Characterizing the Structural Integrity of Endotracheal Tube Taping Techniques: A Simulation Study.
Endotracheal tubes (ETTs) are commonly secured with tape to prevent undesirable tube migration. Many methods of taping have been described, although little has been published comparing various methods of taping to one another. In this study, we evaluated several methods for securing ETTs with tape. We hypothesized a difference in mean peak forces between the methods studied during forced extubation. ⋯ We found evidence of differential structural integrity between the 5 taping methods studied. More generally, we found that increased peak extubation forces were associated with increased total surface area of tape and that minimization of the "peel angle" by lateral application of tape is associated with surprisingly high relative peak extubation forces.