Acute Awake Fiberoptic Intubation in the ICU in a Patient with Limited Mouth Opening and Hypoxemic Acute Respiratory Failure

Kjartan E Hannig; Rasmus W Hauritz; Christian Jessen; Anders M Grejs

doi:10.1155/2019/6421910

Acute Awake Fiberoptic Intubation in the ICU in a Patient with Limited Mouth Opening and Hypoxemic Acute Respiratory Failure

Case Rep Anesthesiol. 2019 Oct 23:2019:6421910. doi: 10.1155/2019/6421910. eCollection 2019.

Authors

Kjartan E Hannig¹, Rasmus W Hauritz¹, Christian Jessen², Anders M Grejs³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Anesthesiology, Kolding Hospital, 6000 Kolding, Denmark.
² Department of Anesthesiology, Horsens Hospital, 8700 Horsens, Denmark.
³ Department of Intensive Care Medicine, Aarhus University Hospital, 8200 Aarhus N, Denmark.

Abstract

The incidence and survival of patients with head-and-neck cancer have been on the increase for decades. Following surgery or radiation therapy, complications such as difficult airways may evolve. These difficult airways may be unique and not manageable with conventional intubation methods as well as video laryngoscopes. Acute awake fiberoptic intubation may be a feasible option also for urgent emergency airway management of known difficult airways. The "cannot intubate-cannot oxygenate" (CI-CO) situation has to be avoided at all costs, since emergency cricothyrotomy has a fail ratio of more than 50% when performed by an anesthesiologist.

Publication types

Case Reports