Cricoid pressure: can protective force be sustained?

Cricoid pressure, can it still be done?

Cricoid pressure application to awake volunteers: discomfort cannot be used to indicate appropriate force.

To the Editor: The lowest platelet counts at which one can safely administer neuraxial anesthesia for labour and delivery is controversial. Published studies are few and sample sizes small.1–3 We report our institutional experience with thrombocytopenic parturients, probably the largest group to date. Medical records from 1997 to 2002 of parturients with platelet counts < 100,000·μL–1 during th...

Cricoid pressure.

PURPOSE Although cricoid pressure (CP) is a superficially simple and appropriate mechanical method to protect the patient from regurgitation and gastric insufflation, in practice it is a complex manoeuvre which is difficult to perform optimally. The purpose of this review is to examine and evaluate studies on the application of (CP). It deals with anatomical and physiological considerations, te...

Bacterial turgor pressure can be measured by atomic force microscopy.

We report a study of the deformability of a bacterial wall with an atomic force microscope (AFM). A theoretical expression is derived for the force exerted by the wall on the cantilever as a function of the depths of indentation generated by the AFM tip. Evidence is provided that this reaction force is a measure for the turgor pressure of the bacterium. The method was applied to magnetotactic b...

Cricoid pressure: the argument against