Predicting difficult orotracheal intubation in pharyngo-laryngeal surgery

Luminiţa Chiuţu¹, Elena Ioniţă², Georgiana-Diana Vărzaru1, Fl. Anghelina², N.V. Călina1, Daniela-Cornelia Călina³

1 Clinica Anestezie şi Terapie Intensivă, Spitalul Clinic de Urgenţă, Craiova
2 Clinica ORL, Spitalul Clinic de Urgenţă, Craiova
3 Disciplina de Farmacie Clinică, Facultatea de Farmacie, UMF Craiova

Abstract

Purpose: The factors linked to difficult endotracheal intubation (DEI), in patients undergoing pharyngo­­laryngeal surgery have rarely been evaluated. The objective of this study was to establish a clinical index for prediction of DEI in this type of patients.

Methods: Two hundred consecutive adult patients with pharyngolaryngeal disease scheduled to undergo pharyngolaryngeal surgery under general anesthesia with orotracheal intubation were included in the study. To evaluate the patients we used a DEI score with 8 variables.

Results: The incidence of DEI according to the predefined criteria was 54.5%, being confirmed by direct laryngoscopy in 49% cases. The proposed test provided a sensitivity of 80.06% and a specificity of 70.58%.

Conclusion: Our index is aimed to predict DEI in this specific population and it uses a series of variables which may be measured easily during the preoperative period and provides an excellent predictive capacity with a high sensitivity and specificity.

Keywords: difficult endotracheal intubation, pharyngolaryngeal surgery