BACKGROUND During retrograde tracheal intubation, the short distance existing between the cricothyroid membrane and vocal cords may be responsible for accidental extubation. The insertion of a catheter into the trachea before the removal of the guide wire may help to cope with this problem. This work was conducted to study the impact of such a modification on the success rate and the duration o...

OBJECTIVE Calculating weight-based drug doses for pediatric patients is difficult, with significant error potential. In the prehospital setting, few safeguards currently avert pediatric drug administration errors. We sought to determine whether use of a protocol-specific pediatric code card enables prehospital care providers to calculate more consistently accurate weight-based drug doses, volum...

Weaning from mechanical ventilation represents the period of transition from total ventilatory support to spontaneous breathing. About 70% of intubated mechanically ventilated patients are extubated on the first spontaneous breathing trial (SBT) attempt, whether by disconnection from the ventilator or after breathing at low levels of pressure support for short periods of time, such as 30 to 120...

OBJECTIVES To determine if the phenomenon of biofilm accumulation and associated microbial colonization occurs on the surface of endotracheal tubes in the region of the subglottis in neonates. METHODS Endotracheal tubes removed from 9 consecutive neonatal patients intubated for more than 12 hours were processed (range, 13 hours to 8 days). A sterile control tube was also processed. For each, ...

Received: September 9, 2008. Accepted: November 11, 2008. Corresponding author: Jong-Man Kang, M.D., Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine,, East-West Neo Medical Center, Kyung Hee University, 149, Sangil-dong Gangdong-gu, Seoul 134-090, Korea. Tel: 82-2-440-6193, Fax: 82-2-787-7808, E-mail: [email protected] Copyright c Korean Society of Anesthesiologists, 2009 Fig. 1. Photograph of a M...

To describe the mechanical characteristics of the respiratory system in intubated neonates with respiratory disease, we measured impedance and resistance in six paralyzed intubated infants with respiratory distress syndrome, three of whom also had pulmonary interstitial emphysema. We subtracted the effects of the endotracheal tube after showing that such subtraction was valid. Oscillatory flow ...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES We report a case of pneumothorax caused by a bronchial perforation during a reintubation using an airway exchange catheter (AEC) in a patient with a head and neck cancer. CASE REPORT A 53 year old man with oropharynx carcinoma was admitted to ICU for severe pneumonia and severe acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). The patient was recognized as a difficult-to-i...