• Jozef Klučka, Petr Štourač, Roman Štoudek, Michaela Ťoukálková, Hana Harazim, and Martina Kosinová.
• Department of Pediatric Anesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine, Medical Faculty of Masaryk University and University Hospital Brno, Cernopolni 9, 613 00 Brno, Czech Republic.
• Biomed Res Int. 2015 Jan 1; 2015: 368761.

AbstractPediatric airway management is a challenge in routine anesthesia practice. Any airway-related complication due to improper procedure can have catastrophic consequences in pediatric patients. The authors reviewed the current relevant literature using the following data bases: Google Scholar, PubMed, Medline (OVID SP), and Dynamed, and the following keywords: Airway/s, Children, Pediatric, Difficult Airways, and Controversies. From a summary of the data, we identified several controversies: difficult airway prediction, difficult airway management, cuffed versus uncuffed endotracheal tubes for securing pediatric airways, rapid sequence induction (RSI), laryngeal mask versus endotracheal tube, and extubation timing. The data show that pediatric anesthesia practice in perioperative airway management is currently lacking the strong evidence-based medicine (EBM) data that is available for adult subpopulations. A number of procedural steps in airway management are derived only from adult populations. However, the objective is the same irrespective of patient age: proper securing of the airway and oxygenation of the patient.

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