• Yanli Liu, Jiashuo Wang, and Shan Zhong.
• Science and technology department, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, People's Republic of China.
• BMC Anesthesiol. 2020 Apr 8; 20 (1): 8282.

BackgroundDifficult tracheal intubation is a common problem encountered by anesthesiologists in the clinic. This study was conducted to assess the difficulty of tracheal intubation in infants with Pierre Robin syndrome (PRS) by incorporating computed tomography (CT) to guide airway management for anesthesia.MethodsIn this retrospective study, we analyzed case-level clinical data and CT images of 96 infants with PRS. First, a clinically experienced physician labeled CT images, after which the color space conversion, binarization, contour acquisition, and area calculation processing were performed on the annotated files. Finally, the correlation coefficient between the seven clinical factors and tracheal intubation difficulty, as well as the differences in each risk factor under tracheal intubation difficulty were calculated.ResultsThe absolute value of the correlation coefficient between the throat area and tracheal intubation difficulty was 0.54; the observed difference was statistically significant. Body surface area, weight, and gender also showed significant difference under tracheal intubation difficulty.ConclusionsThere is a significant correlation between throat area and tracheal intubation difficulty in infants with PRS. Body surface area, weight and gender may have an impact on tracheal intubation difficulty in infants with PRS.

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