• Lukasz Szarpak, Zenon Truszewski, Lukasz Czyzewski, Andrzej Kurowski, Lukasz Bogdanski, and Piotr Zasko.
• Department of Emergency Medicine, Medical University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland.
• Am J Emerg Med. 2015 Nov 1;33(11):1547-51.

IntroductionThe main cause of cardiac arrest in pediatric patients is respiratory failure.ObjectiveTo test the ability of paramedics to intubate the trachea of a child by means of the standard Macintosh [MAC] laryngoscope vs the Clarus Leviatan fiberoptic stylet (FPS) during 3-airway scenarios.MethodsThis was a randomized crossover manikin study involving 89 paramedics. The participants performed tracheal intubations using the MAC laryngoscope and the Clarus Leviatan FPS in 3 pediatric airway scenarios: scenario A, normal airway without chest compression (CC); scenario B, normal airway with CC; and scenario C, difficult airway with CC.ResultsA total of 89 paramedics participated in this study. In scenario A, the FPS maintained a better success rate at first attempt (97.8% vs 88.9%; P=.73) and time required to intubate (17 [interquartile range, 15-21) seconds vs 18 [interquartile range, 16-22] seconds; P=.67) when compared with MAC. In scenarios B and C, the results with FPS were significantly better than those with MAC (P<.05) for all analyzed variables.ConclusionsThis study suggested that the FPS could be used as an option for airway management even for paramedics with little experience. Future studies should explore the efficacy of FPS in pediatric clinical emergency settings.Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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