Plain endotracheal tube insertion carries greater risk for malpositioning than does reinforced endotracheal tube insertion in females

provided the original work is properly cited. CC Malpositioning of an endotracheal tube within the airway can lead to serious complications, such as endobronchial intubation, which may cause collapse of the nonventilated lung and barotrauma of the ventilated lung or vocal cord paralysis and accidental extubation [1]. We retrospectively identified 204 (54 plain tubes and 54 reinforced tubes in males; 36 plain and 60 reinforced tubes in females) chest X-rays of patients with endotracheal tubes suitable for analysis by examining the radiology database and selecting the first available postoperative AP chest X-ray with an endotracheal tube in situ. The position of the endotracheal tube tip relative to the carina was measured from postoperative chest X-rays using the Picture Archiving and Communication System (Infinitt Healthcare Co., Ltd., Seoul, Korea). We also reviewed medical records to obtain the demographic details of the patients and to confirm the use of routine clinical tube placement methods. We defined the appropriate depth of the endotracheal tube from the carina to be > 2 cm and ≤ 6 cm [2]. A t-test was performed for statistical analysis within the same gender. A P value of < 0.05 was considered to be statistically significant. Demographics and relationships of distal endotracheal tube position in the airway are shown in Table 1. Average age, height, and weight were different between the two groups of males. The distances between the tip of the endotracheal tube to the carina were significantly different between the two groups of female patients.