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The COVID-19 pandemic has brought with it a large number of challenges for healthcare professionals including intubation safety in out-of-theatre environments. An important aspect of this topic is the optimisation of a patient’s head and neck position prior to laryngoscopy which can be challenging when a pillow cannot be located. As a result, the authors compared how well the sniffing position (35o neck flexion and 15o head extension) could be reached using pillows or other novel head supports. The resulting data demonstrated that a 1-litre pressure bag and two 1-litre saline bags achieved the most accurate position.

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