Prospective validation of a new airway management algorithm and predictive features of intubation difficulty.

BACKGROUND: Some patients have features that indicate possible difficulty with direct laryngoscopy for tracheal intubation. Prediction of the likely outcome and selection of patients for an enhanced management algorithm would reduce the possible harm from failed intubation attempts. METHODS: Adult elective patients were assessed for seven features associated with difficult direct laryngoscopy, ranked in difficulty from 0 to 3. For a patient with at least one Class 3 feature, or two or more features of class 1 or higher, the enhanced management used a channelled videolaryngoscope Airtraq™ instead of a Macintosh laryngoscope. A long flexible angulated stylet and a flexible fibrescope would be used as the second and third steps. For patients with lesser difficulty scores, a Macintosh laryngoscope was used. Outcomes of enhanced management were analysed. Logistic regression and Random Forest algorithm, using the ranks of the predictive features, were used to predict difficulty during enhanced management. RESULTS: We prospectively studied 16 695 patients. We selected 1501 (9%) for enhanced management, and tracheal intubation was successful in all of them. Of these, 73% were intubated in less than 30 s, and only 4.5% required more than 4 min for intubation. Progression to the second and third steps of enhanced management was predicted by restriction of mouth opening and reduced cervical spine mobility. CONCLUSIONS: An enhanced management algorithm allowed successful tracheal intubation of all patients with anticipated difficult laryngoscopy. The need to combine the use of a stylet and a fibrescope with the Airtraq™ could be predicted with a high degree of certainty.

Which preoperative respiratory evaluation?

The preoperative respiratory evaluation aims at predicting the occurrence of postoperative respiratory complications (PORC), such as: atelectasis, pulmonary infection (bronchitis and pneumonia), acute ventilatory distress, pleural effusion, prolonged mechanical ventilation, exacerbation of chronic respiratory disease and bronchospasm. The incidence of (PORC) all surgeries combined is 6.8%. Individual surgical and anesthetic factors are impacting on the occurrence of PORC. Simple scores, including anamnestic data, clinical examination and some biological parameters were validated to assess the risk of PORC depending on the type of surgery. Data from standard pulmonary function tests (PFT) is of little use to estimate the individual risk of PORC. Most of the time, PFT abnormal parameters only confirm the clinical assessment of the severity of the illness. PFT may however be useful to confirm an improvement in the clinical condition of the patient related to the preoperative preparation. Specialized EFR, including standardized testing efforts are sometimes required in the case of lung reduction surgery. These specialized explorations can predict lung function and post-interventional pulmonary oxygenation and ensure that these are viable.

Postoperative visual loss due to complicated mediastinal dissection and haemorrhagic shock treatment during cardiac surgery.

We report the case of a patient who underwent third time revision of double heart valve replacement. Mediastinal dissection for right atrium cannulation was complicated by laceration of the superior vena cava; this required temporary rescue clamping of the vessel. The patient suffered complete visual loss related to bilateral retrobulbar haematoma. Acute elevation of superior vena cava pressure due to vascular clamping and administration of large amounts of fluid through the central venous jugular catheter could have caused the postoperative visual loss.