• Yang Zhou, Yongzheng Han, Zhengqian Li, Yuqing Zhao, Ning Yang, Taotao Liu, Min Li, Jun Wang, Xiangyang Guo, and Mao Xu.
• Department of Anesthesiology, Peking University Third Hospital, Peking University Health Science Center, 49 North Garden Road, Haidian District, Beijing, P.R. China.
• BMC Anesthesiol. 2021 Apr 12; 21 (1): 111.

BackgroundAirway management is one of the most important techniques in anesthesia practice and inappropriate airway management is related with airway injury, brain hypoxia, and even death. The patients with cervical spondylosis are often confronted with difficult laryngoscopy who are more prone to appear difficult airway, so it is important to figure out valuable predictors of difficult laryngoscopy in these patients.MethodsWe randomly enrolled 270 patients undergoing elective cervical spine surgery and analyzed the cervical mobility data in predicting difficult laryngoscopy. The preoperative X-ray radiological indicators were measured by an attending radiologist. Cormack-Lehane scales were assessed during intubation, and patients with a class III or IV view were assigned to the difficult laryngoscopy group.ResultsUnivariate analysis showed that the hyomental distance (HMD, the distance between the hyoid bone and the tip of the chin) and the hyomental distance ratio (HMDR, the ratio between HMD in the extension position and the one in the neutral position) might not be suitable indicators in patients with cervical spondylosis. Binary multivariate logistic regression (backward-Wald) analyses identified two independent correlative factors from the cervical mobility indicators that correlated best as a predictor of difficult laryngoscopy: modified Mallampati test (MMT) and C2C6AR (the ratio of the angle between a line passing through the bottom of the second cervical vertebra and a line passing through the bottom of the sixth cervical vertebra in the extension position and the one in the neutral position). The odds ratio (OR) and 95 % CI were 2.292(1.093-4.803) and 0.493 (0.306-0.793), respectively. C2C6AR exhibited the largest area under the curve (0.714; 95 % CI 0.633-0.794).ConclusionsC2C6AR based on preoperative X-ray images may be the most accurate predictor of cervical mobility indicators for difficult laryngoscopy in patients with cervical spondylosis.Trial RegistrationThe study was registered at the Chinese Clinical Trial Registry ( http://www.chictr.org.cn ; identifier: ChiCTR-ROC-16,008,598) on June 6, 2016.

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