There are a number of potential physical advantages to performing orotracheal intubation in an upright position. The objective of this study was to measure the success of intubation of a simulated patient in an upright versus supine position by novice intubators after brief training. This was a cross-over design study in which learners (medical students, physician assistant students, and parame...

BACKGROUND Paramedics are frequently required to perform tracheal intubation, a potentially life-saving manoeuvre in severely ill patients, in the prehospital setting. However, direct laryngoscopy is often more difficult in this environment, and failed tracheal intubation constitutes an important cause of morbidity. Novel indirect laryngoscopes, such as the Airtraq and Truview laryngoscopes may...

The Macintosh laryngoscope has been the most widely used device for intubation since its invention by Foregger in the 1940s. Recently, video and optic laryngoscopy assisted tracheal intubation has been used widely in patients with difficult airways. Their routine use, however, is not widely practiced. This review will summarize some of the newly available devices to assist tracheal intubation, ...

In the United States, advanced level rescuers often use endotracheal intubation (ETI) to provide oxygenation and ventilation to apneic or hypoventilating patients. Alternate airways are devices that facilitate oxygenation and ventilation without the use of an endotracheal tube (Table 1). Other terms used to describe an alternate airway include rescue airway device, alternative airway, secondary...

BACKGROUND In this study, the authors determined the success and failure rates for interns learning bag-and-mask ventilation and orotracheal intubation. Their goal was to determine the amount of experience needed to perform these procedures correctly. METHODS The authors recorded 695 bag-and-mask ventilations and 679 orotracheal intubations performed by 15 inexperienced interns during their 3...

This article is one of ten reviews selected from the Annual Update in Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine 2015 and co-published as a series in Critical Care. Other articles in the series can be found online at http://ccforum.com/series/annualupdate2015. Further information about the Annual Update in Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine is available from http://www.springer.com/series/8901.

The objective of this study was to measure the pressure created by different intubation devices on the tongue during endotracheal intubation attempts in the mannequin model. Fourteen specialists and 20 anaesthesiologists in training took part in the study. I connected the manometer with the line used for inflating the mannequin tongue to create simulated conditions of tongue oedema. For the stu...

BACKGROUND Reduced mouth opening may be a major contributing factor to the deterioration in the view obtained at laryngoscopy when a semi-rigid cervical collar is in place. We set out to assess the degree to which mouth opening is restricted by a cervical collar. METHODS We measured maximal inter-incisor distance in 52 volunteers. It was measured again after application of each of three appro...

OBJECTIVE Endotracheal intubation of patients is an effective method for controlling airway and breathing. However, laryngoscopy and endotracheal intubation is not easy in every case. There is a recent abundance of equipment used for controlling ventilation and intubation. Airtraq is one of those equipments. In this study, our main objective is to compare the success rates of the Airtraq and Ma...

The TruView EVO2 laryngoscope was compared with the traditional Macintosh laryngoscope in 200 patients who required tracheal intubation for elective surgery. Mallampati score determined prior to laryngoscopy was significantly related to the view of the glottis during laryngoscopy for both laryngoscopes. The view of the larynx was better with the TruView EVO2 laryngoscope than with the Macintosh...