Complications of Emergency Tracheal Intubation: Immediate Airway-related Consequences: Part II

Abstract

Airway management in the stable, elective operating room patient is typically exceptionally safe. Conversely, the acute deterioration of an intensive care unit or floor patient being rescued by a clinician unfamiliar with the patient's past and current history combined with an incomplete physical examination places the critically ill patient in a precarious, potentially life-threatening position. Emergency airway management in remote locations outside the confines of the operating room is complex and stressful due to immense airway challenges coupled with the high risk of hemodynamic and airway complications. Despite the commonality of difficulties with mask ventilation, laryngoscopy, and tracheal intubation in this population, relatively sparse literature deals with these subjects. Consequences of airway management should be openly discussed as a first step toward improving airway safety. This is the second of 2 reviews, “Complications of Emergency Tracheal Intubation,” and focuses on the immediate airway-related consequences during emergency tracheal intubation in the remote location.