Difficult intubation in children: applicability of the Mallampati index.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES The concern of facing difficult airways brought the need of developing predictive testing for difficult intubation. Those tests were developed primarily for adult populations. In pediatric patients studies always focus on patients with congenital malformation, polytraumatized, and newborns. The objective of the present study was to determine the applicability of the predictive test used more often in adults, the Mallampati index, in patients 4 to 8 years old, correlating it with the Cormack-Lehane index. METHODS One hundred and eight patients 4 to 8 years of age, ASA I, without any type of congenital malformation, genetic syndromes or cognitive deficits were evaluated. The Mallampati index was applied to patients during the pre-anesthetic evaluation. Evaluation of the Cormack-Lehane index was performed after anesthetic induction. A p<0.05 was considered significant. RESULTS The Mallampati index showed a significant correlation with the Cormack-Lehane index. The sensitivity and specificity of the Mallampati index were 75.8% and 96.2% respectively, but the sensitivity showed a wide confidence interval. CONCLUSIONS The Mallampati index was proven to be applicable in children 4 to 8 years old.