Videolaryngoscopes and pre‐hospital intubation

Conducting a safe rapid sequence induction in pre-hospital care

“…One study demonstrated that difficulties encountered during pre-hospital endotracheal intubation included ‘blood (19.9%), vomit/debris (15.8%) and secretions (13.8%) in the upper airway’. 30 As highlighted by Thomson et al., 31 this may result in failure of the videolarygoscope due to scope soiling. However, they may be of use in the difficult laryngoscopies found by the same study as a result of ‘anatomical reasons (11.7%), patient position (9.6%) and surrounding conditions (9.1%)’, 30 although interestingly all these patients were intubated successfully using conventional direct laryngoscopy.…”